English

Noun

quillet ‎(plural quillets)

1. A quibble, an evasive distinction.
   • 1602, William Shakespeare, Hamlet , act V, scene 1:

     Where be his quiddities now - his quillets, his cases, his tenures and his tricks?

   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, NYRB, 2001, volume 1, page 327-8:

     Hence it comes that such a pack of vile buffoons […] intrude with unwashed feet upon the sacred precinct of Theology, bringing with them nothing save brazen impudence, and some hackneyed quillets and scholastic trifles not good enough for a crowd at a street corner.

Etymology 2

Origin unknown.

Noun

quillet ‎(plural quillets)

1. (now regional) A small plot of land; historically: a strip of land that together with others like it formed a larger field.
   • 1908, Sabine Baring-Gould, “Hugh Stafford and the Royal Wilding”, in Devonshire Characters and Strange Events, London: John Lane, page 7:

     The single and only [Royal Wilding apple] tree from which the apple was first propagated […] stands in a very little quillet (as we call it) of gardening, adjoining to the post-road that leads from Exeter to Oakhampton, in the parish of St. Thomas, but near the borders of another parish called Whitestone.

Synonyms

• croft