pill

Related to pill: birth control pill, sleeping pill, pill bugs

pill

1. slang An unsavory, unpleasant, or difficult person. Tom is such a pill, but I have to work with him to get this project finished, unfortunately. Our three-year-old can be the sweetest little girl in the world, but she can be a real pill at times too.
2. informal Some fact or piece of information that is particularly bad, unpleasant, or dissatisfactory. Used in phrases such as "sweeten the pill" or "a bitter pill to swallow," etc. Getting a poor performance review was a bitter pill to swallow, but it made me a better worker. I have to tell my mom about wrecking her car, but I need to find a way to sweeten the pill first.
3. slang A barbiturate or amphetamine in tablet form. Usually used in the plural. I smoked a little weed when I was in college, but I never touched pills. Everyone at the rave was hopped up on pills.
4. slang Any ball used in sports. He hit the pill with such force that his bat shattered. My love of football started when I was a kid, when my dad would take me in the back yard to throw the pill around.

the pill

1. The birth control pill (an oral contraceptive that inhibits ovulation to prevent conception). I tried the pill for a while in college, but it really didn't agree with my body. A: "Why on worth wouldn't you use a condom, dude?" B: "She told me she was on the pill!"
2. Some fact or piece of information that is particularly bad, unpleasant, or dissatisfactory. Used exclusively in constructions like "sweeten the pill," "sugar-coat the pill," etc. The bosses are giving everyone an extra 10% bonus this year, but I suspect it's a way of sugar-coating the pill that there will be massive pay cuts in January. I have to tell my mom about wrecking her car, but I need to find a way to sweeten the pill first.
See also: pill
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

pill

1. and the pill n. a birth control pill. (Always with the in this sense.) The pill has really changed my life.
2. n. a tobacco cigarette; a marijuana cigarette. I’ll trade you a pill for a match.
3. n. a drug in capsule form. The doctor prescribed these pills.
4. n. a football. Fred kicked the pill through the goal and won the game.

the pill

verb
See pill
See also: pill
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See:
  • a bitter pill
  • a bitter pill to swallow
  • a chill pill
  • a hard pill to swallow
  • a tough pill to swallow
  • be on the pill
  • bitter pill (to swallow)
  • bitter pill to swallow
  • blue pill
  • gild the pill
  • go-pills
  • gorilla biscuits
  • gorilla pills
  • happy pills
  • horse pill
  • idiot pills
  • King Kong pills
  • more (something) than Carter('s) has (liver) pills
  • more than Carter has pills
  • on the pill
  • pep pill
  • pill
  • pill dropper
  • pill freak
  • pill mill
  • pill peddler
  • pill popper
  • pill pusher
  • pill roller
  • pill-dropper
  • pillhead
  • pill-in-the-pocket
  • pill-peddler
  • pill-popper
  • pill-pusher
  • pill-roller
  • poison pill
  • pop
  • pop pills
  • red pill
  • sugar pill
  • sugar the pill
  • sugar/sweeten the pill
  • sugar-coat the pill
  • sweeten the pill
  • take a chill pill
  • the pill
References in classic literature
Emboldened by the absence of any public scandal in connection with Noel Vanstone's marriage, or with the event of his death as announced in the newspaper obituary, the captain, roaming the eastern circuit, had ventured back to Aldborough a fortnight since, to establish an agency there for the sale of his wonderful Pill. No one had recognized him but the landlady of the hotel, who at once insisted on his entering the house and reading Kirke's letter to her husband.
Who had a better claim to send for the right doctor, and get the right nurse, when I was not here to cure you with my wonderful Pill? Gently!
If you have no objection, I will provide her beforehand with a few thousand impressions in red, blue, and yellow of her own portrait ('You might have blown this patient away with a feather before she took the Pill. Look at her now!').
No Name
"He must be a powerful Sorcerer!" exclaimed the Tin Woodman; "and since the powder proved a success we ought to have confidence in the pills."
"Then the pills are of no use to us," wailed the Pumpkinhead; "and this fact overwhelms me with grief.
"If we could use the pills at all we would make far better wishes than that."
The Marvelous Land of Oz
I believe the students would rather take the pills than study, and certainly the pills are a more effective method.
"Seems to me the pills are a good thing," said Omby Amby, who remembered how it used to make his head ache as a boy to study arithmetic.
"Young men in college always have to take their medicine, one way or another," observed the Wizard, with a smile; "and, as our Professor says, these School Pills have proved to be a great success.
The Emerald City of Oz
In spite of the many pills she swallowed and the drops and powders out of the little bottles and boxes of which Madame Schoss who was fond of such things made a large collection, and in spite of being deprived of the country life to which she was accustomed, youth prevailed.
War and Peace
"I will now cut one of these pills in two," said Holmes, and drawing his penknife he suited the action to the word.
The very pills which I suspected in the case of Drebber are actually found after the death of Stangerson.
A Study In Scarlet
He had been made to accept Saunders McNitre, Luke Waters, Giles Jowls, Podgers' Pills, Rodgers' Pills, Pokey's Elixir, every one of her Ladyship's remedies spiritual or temporal.
Vanity Fair
"Would it be an indiscretion to ask to see those precious pills?" continued Beauchamp, hoping to take him at a disadvantage.
The casket passed around the table, but it was more to examine the admirable emerald than to see the pills that it passed from hand to hand.
Count of Monte Cristo