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The Latin word for "hair" - "pilus" - has given us a number of words: "depilation" ("the removal of hair by chemical or mechanical means"), "pilose" ("covered with soft hair"), and "pelage" ("the hairy covering of a mammal"). "Pilgarlic" also has ties to "pilus," although the person who first used the word in the 16th century was probably thinking about cloves, not Latin roots. Pilgarlic comes from the supposed resemblance between a bald head and peeled garlic - "pilled garlic," in British dialect. The verb "pill" comes in part from the Old English "pilian" ("to peel"), which is thought to trace back to "pilus."
First Known Use: circa 1529
in the meaning defined at sense 1a
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