Pl. squillæ. [L. (see prec.).]
† 1. The squill or sea-onion. Obs.
1516. Grete Herball, ccccxiii. Y iv. Squilla hath vertue to deuyde and sprede humours.
1539. Elyot, Cast. Helthe (1541), 60. Digestiues of fleume,… Hony, Gynger, Squilla.
1563. Hyll, Art Garden. (1593), 30. Certaine rather will, that you sow his hearbe in fashion to a big Onion, and named of the Apothecaries Squilla in the Garden.
1601. R. Chester, Love’s Martyr (1878), 87. And Squilla, that keepes men from foule despaire.
1611. Cotgr., Scille, the Squilla, or sea Onion.
† b. A plant or bulb of this. Obs.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. (1568), 130. Take the squilla, and couer it round about wyth clay…, and put it into an ouen.
2. = prec. 4.
1658. Rowland, trans. Moufet’s Theat. Insects, II. xxxvii. 1125. They leap quickly one upon the other as the Fishes Squillæ doe in coupling.
1753. J. Hill, Hist. Anim., 28. The Squilla has ten legs, the foremost pair cheliform, or made for pinching and holding things. Ibid. The long-tailed Squilla.
1818. Scoresby, in Life (1861), vii. 140. The squillæ are very abundant in the Greenland Sea.
1839. T. Beale, Hist. Sperm Whale, 189. The common black whale’s food, that consists of ‘squillæ’ and other small animals.
† 3. Zool. (See quot.) Obs.
1658. Rowland, trans. Moufet’s Theat. Insects, II. xxxvii. 1124. The Squilla an Insect differs but little from the fish Squilla, but that it hath the sail-yards much shorter, and a more red colour, or rather a more earthly colour.
