pill noun [Cf. Peel skin, or Pillion.] The peel or skin. [Obs.]

“Some be covered over with crusts, or hard pills, as the locusts.” Holland.

Pill, intransitive verb To be peeled; to peel off in flakes.

Pill, transitive verb [Cf. L. pilare to deprive of hair, and E. pill, n. (above).]

1. To deprive of hair; to make bald. [Obs.]

2. To peel; to make by removing the skin.

[Jacob] pilled white streaks . . . in the rods. Gen. xxx. 37.

Pill, transitive or intransitive verb [imperfect or past participle Pilled; present participle or verbal noun Pilling.] [F. piller, L. pilare; cf. It. pigliare to take. Cf. Peel to plunder.] To rob; to plunder; to pillage; to peel. See Peel, to plunder. [Obs.] Spenser.

Pillers and robbers were come in to the field to pill and to rob. Sir T. Malroy.

Pill, noun [F. pilute, L. pilula a pill, little ball, dim. of L. pila a ball. Cf. Piles.]

1. A medicine in the form of a little ball, or small round mass, to be swallowed whole.

2. Figuratively, something offensive or nauseous which must be accepted or endured. Udall.

Pill beetle (Zool.), any small beetle of the genus Byrrhus, having a rounded body, with the head concealed beneath the thorax.

Pill bug (Zool.), any terrestrial isopod of the genus Armadillo, having the habit of rolling itself into a ball when disturbed. Called also pill wood louse.

-- Websters 1913