drill

present singular third person drills · participle present drilling · participle past drilled · past drilled

1. transitiveTo create (a hole) by removing material with a drill (tool).

   Drill a small hole to start the screw in the right direction.

   Synonyms: excavate, bore, gouge

2. intransitiveTo practice, especially in (or as in) a military context.

   They drilled daily to learn the routine exactly.

   1 more example

   On his return the team that faced Hull City had been reconfigured. Moses wasn’t overly drilled, just told he would be playing right wing-back, that Conte had seen enough to know.

   2017 May 13, Barney Ronay, “Antonio Conte’s brilliance has turned Chelsea’s pop-up team into champions”, in the Guardian

3. ergativeTo cause to drill (practice); to train, especially in military arts.

   The sergeant was up by 6:00 every morning, drilling his troops.

   2 more examples

   He [Frederic the Great] drilled his people, as he drilled his grenadiers.

   1859, Thomas Macaulay, Life of Frederick the Great

   Now I want you to take Vallett in hand and drill him stiff with everything that has to do with Tilehurst and Tapsfield.

   1934, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], The Bravo of London

4. transitiveTo repeat an idea frequently in order to encourage someone to remember it.

   The instructor drilled into us the importance of reading the instructions.

5. figurativelyintransitiveTo investigate or examine something in more detail or at a different level

   Drill deeper and you may find the underlying assumptions faulty.

6. transitiveTo throw, run, hit or kick with a lot of power.

   He drilled the ball to his teammate.

   4 more examples

   He drilled down the court and made a three-pointer.

   He did get their attention when he drilled the ball dead center into the hole for an opening birdie.

   2006, Joe Coon, The Perfect Game

   Without compromising he drilled the ball home, leaving Dynamos' ill-fated keeper diving for fresh air.

   2007, Craig Cowell, Muddy Sunday

   Bolton were then just inches from taking the lead, but the dangerous-looking Taylor drilled just wide after picking up a loose ball following Jose Bosingwa's poor attempted clearance.

   2010 December 29, Chris Whyatt, “Chelsea 1 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC

7. ball gamesTo hit someone with a pitch, especially in an intentional context.
8. slangvulgarTo have sexual intercourse with; to penetrate.

   Guess I'll be drilling her butt

   2012, SwizZz, “Flu Shot”

   1 more example

   Everytime^([sic]) when I rape your daughter. Your beautiful faces expressing how it hurts. Always while I drill her c*nt. I want to see you dead.

   2010, MasseMord, “Masshealing Masskilling”

   Synonyms: plow, poke, root, shaft, Formal terms, bed, coit, coitize

9. slangTo shoot; to kill by shooting.

   ‘Matthew Garth woulda let Tom Dunstan drill him insteada drawin’ against him.’

   1982, Paul Radley, My Blue-Checker Corker and Me, Sydney: Fontana/Collins, page 16

   Synonyms: drill up

plural drills

1. A tool or machine used to remove material so as to create a hole, typically by plunging a rotating cutting bit into a stationary workpiece.

   Wear safety glasses when operating an electric drill.

2. The portion of a drilling tool that drives the bit.

   Use a drill with a wire brush to remove any rust or buildup.

3. An activity done as an exercise or practice (especially a military exercise), particularly in preparation for some possible future event or occurrence.

   fire drill

   4 more examples

   disaster drill

   emergency drill

   Regular drills can ensure that everyone knows how to exit safely in an emergency.

   “[…] if you call my duds a ‘livery’ again there'll be trouble. It's bad enough to go around togged out like a life saver on a drill day, but I can stand that 'cause I'm paid for it. What I won't stand is to have them togs called a livery. […]”

   1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

4. A short and highly repeatable sports training exercise designed to hone a particular skill that may be useful in competition.

   At today's practice, the football team performed a variety of goalkeeping drills.

5. Any of several molluscs, of the genus Urosalpinx and others, especially the oyster drill (Urosalpinx cinerea), that make holes in the shells of their prey.
6. uncountableentertainmentA style of trap music with gritty, violent lyrics, originating on the South Side of Chicago.First known use 2010s

   Between ticky off-kilter rhythms and otherworldly digital voice processing, the experimental hip-hop genres trap and drill have delivered radical hymns from alien planets.

   2022, W. David Marx, chapter 10, in Status and Culture, Viking, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Though the young women of Chicago’s drill scene can be as rowdy as their male counterparts, they’re also more diverse in subject matter and point to a possible way forward.

   2012 October 4, Jon Caramanica, “Chicago Hip-Hop’s Raw Burst of Change”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   New York City mayor Eric Adams held a summit with a group of drill rappers on Tuesday night and clarified he doesn’t actually want to ban their music, days after he appeared to blame the music scene for the recent shooting deaths of two young New York rappers and suggested drill videos be pulled from the internet.

   2022 February 18, Wilfred Chan, “Eric Adams meets with the drill rappers whose music he said he wanted to ban”, in The Guardian

7. countableentertainmentA single performance of drill music.

   These bells are alarmin’ Point blank and you missed your target They go shooting range and their drills are garbage

   2020 November 19, (67) PR SAD, “One Wish” (0:55 from the start)

plural drills

1. An agricultural implement for making holes for sowing seed, and sometimes so formed as to contain seeds and drop them into the hole made.

   I found down at the side of the house the remains of what must have once been a kitchen garden. Everything was choked with weeds and scutch grass, but the outlines of bed and drill were still there.

   1993, John Banville, Ghosts

2. A light furrow or channel made to put seed into, when sowing.
3. A row of seed sown in a furrow.

present singular third person drills · participle present drilling · participle past drilled · past drilled

1. transitiveTo sow (seeds) by dribbling them along a furrow or in a row.

plural drills

1. obsoleteA small trickling stream; a rill.

   Springs through the pleasant meadows pour their drills.

   c. 1635, George Sandys

present singular third person drills · participle present drilling · participle past drilled · past drilled

1. transitiveTo cause to flow in drills or rills or by trickling; to drain by trickling.

   waters drilled through a sandy stratum

   1 more example

   Now it is a great square profunditie ; greene , and uneven at the bottome : into which a barren spring doch drill from betweene the stones of the North - ward wall

   1615, George Sandys, “(please specify the page)”, in The Relation of a Iourney Begun An: Dom: 1610. […], London: […] [Richard Field] for W. Barrett, →OCLC

present singular third person drills · participle present drilling · participle past drilled · past drilled

1. dialectalobsoletetransitiveTo protract, lengthen out; fritter away, spend (time) aimlessly.

   Quit purposely drilling out the time hoping that someone else will do your chores.

2. dialectalobsoletetransitiveTo entice or allure; to decoy; with on.

   He tells me with great passion that she has bubbled him out of his youth; that she drilled him on to five and fifty [years old], and that he verily believes she will drop him in his old age, if she can find her account in another.

   1711 June 12, Joseph Addison, The Spectator, number 89; republished in The Works of Joseph Addison, volume 1, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1842, page 142

   Synonyms: entice, lead on, lure

3. dialectalobsoletetransitiveTo cause to slip or waste away by degrees.

   August 28, 1731, letter by Jonathan Swift to John Gay and Catherine Douglas, Duchess of Queensberry This cursed accident hath drilled away the whole summer.

plural drills

1. An Old World monkey of West Africa, Mandrillus leucophaeus, similar in appearance to the mandrill, but lacking the colorful face.

plural drills

1. countableuncountableA strong, durable cotton fabric with a strong bias (diagonal) in the weave.

   Synonyms: chino