Noun: gill
Sample Sentences
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Fishes […] perform their respiration under water by the gills. [1691, John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation. […], London: […] Samuel Smith, […], →OCLC:]
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Gill nets are designed to catch a fish by the gills.
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dropsy fills you to the gills [1728, Jonathan Swift, Ballad on Ballyspellin:]
Nouns inflected like gill
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. From Middle English gille, gylle (“gill”), of North Germanic origin, akin to Danish gælle, Swedish gäl, Norwegian gjelle, and further to Old Norse gjǫlnar (“lips”), which also may have had the meaning of "gills" (based on Old Danish fiskegæln (“gills”)). The Old Norse word has been suggested as deriving from Proto-Germanic *gelunō (“jaw”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰel-, which would make it root-cognate to Ancient Greek χελύνη (khelúnē, “lip, jaw”), χεῖλος (kheîlos, “lip”).
2. Displaced native Old English ċīe. See: Middle English Nouns '
gille', Danish Nouns '
gælle', Swedish Nouns '
gäl', Old Norse Nouns '
gjǫlnar'.
Verbs referencing "gill"
Swedish Nouns
gäl, Norwegian Bokmål Nouns
gjel, Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns
gjel, Danish Nouns
gælle.