drill
Pluraldrills
Pluraldrills
Formsdrills, drilling, drilled
- 1A tool or machine that removes material to make a hole, usually by pushing a spinning cutting bit into a fixed object.
The mechanic bored a clean hole through the bracket with a hand drill.
Modern cordless drills can switch between making holes and driving screws.
- 2To make a hole by removing material with a rotating cutting tool.
The workers drilled a tunnel through the mountainside.
You need to drill pilot holes before driving the long screws.
Note
Its Middle Dutch source, drillen, meant both "bore" and "move in a circle", which fits a bit that turns as it cuts. That origin is shared by every sense down to the music. The object is usually the hole itself (drill a small hole) rather than the material. Bore is the close synonym. Gouge is the loose one, since gouging scoops material out instead of turning through it.
- 3An activity done as exercise or practice, especially a military one, to prepare for a possible future event.
The crew ran through an emergency evacuation drill before the voyage.
Each drill prepared the recruits for conditions they might face in combat.
Similarexercise, rehearsal, practice
Note
Rehearsal is the point here, and the noun is most at home in compounds that name the emergency being practiced, such as a fire drill. It can also stand before another noun. Joseph C. Lincoln's Mr. Pratt's Patients (1913) has a speaker grumble about being "togged out like a life saver on a drill day."
- 4To practice, especially in a military setting.
The squad drilled for hours in the pouring rain.
Cadets drill daily to build discipline and coordination.
Note
Here the learners are the subject, and nobody is named as their trainer: they drilled daily. Add an object, as in the sergeant drilled his troops, and you have its causative partner. The military flavor travels easily into sport. Barney Ronay, writing on Antonio Conte's Chelsea in 2017, notes that a player "wasn't overly drilled" before being moved to right wing-back.
- 5A short, highly repeatable training exercise designed to sharpen a particular skill useful in competition.
The basketball coach ran a dribbling drill before the scrimmage.
A good footwork drill can improve a player's balance and speed.
Similarexercise
Note
Sport narrows the idea to one skill at a time, repeated until it becomes automatic. These drills usually come in sets and are named by the skill they train, such as goalkeeping drills. The rehearsal sense, by contrast, is named by the event it prepares for, as with a fire drill.
- 6To train others through repeated practice, especially in military skills.
The instructor drilled the cadets in marching formations.
Veteran officers drill recruits until every move becomes instinct.
Similartrain, coach, school, instruct
Note
The same verb works in both directions: troops drill, and a sergeant drills them, with no change of form. Grammarians call this pattern ergative. The trained party can reach well beyond soldiers. Thomas Macaulay's Life of Frederick the Great (1859) says Frederick "drilled his people, as he drilled his grenadiers," turning a parade-ground word into a judgment on how a king governed.
- 7To repeat an idea frequently so that someone remembers it.
The coach drilled the new strategy into the players all week.
Parents often drill basic manners into their children.
Note
Into carries the meaning: you drill something into someone, and the idea goes where it is meant to stay. When the idea is long, it moves to the end of the sentence, as in the instructor drilled into us the importance of reading the instructions. That keeps the sentence from stalling. The tone is insistent, closer to relentless repetition than to a gentle reminder.
- 8To investigate or examine something more closely or at a deeper level.
Analysts drilled down into the regional figures to spot the trend.
We need to drill into the details before deciding.
Note
Boring becomes inquiry. An investigator goes down through layers the way a bit goes through material, and the figure keeps that sense of depth. Deeper is its natural companion, as in drill deeper and the assumptions may turn out faulty. Because the verb needs no object, what is being examined is often left to context.
- 9The mechanism in a drilling tool that supplies the force to turn the cutting bit.
The drill transmits torque to the bit through a tightened chuck.
A worn motor in the drill will fail to spin the bit at full speed.
Note
Workshop speech separates the drill from what it holds: the drill is the body that spins, and the bit is what cuts. Because the drill only drives, it accepts other attachments too, such as a wire brush for stripping rust or buildup. The same tool can therefore clean a surface as readily as bore into it.
- 10To throw, run, hit, or kick something with a lot of power.
The striker drilled the ball past the diving keeper.
Quarterbacks drill the football into tight windows between defenders.
Similarfire, blast, rifle, smash
Note
Sportswriters use it for force in a straight line. Joe Coon's The Perfect Game (2006) has a golfer drill the ball "dead center into the hole". Craig Cowell's Muddy Sunday (2007) has a footballer drill it home. The ball is the usual object, followed by where it went. A player can also drill down the court, with the verb carrying the body itself at speed.
- 11In baseball, to hit a batter with a pitch, especially on purpose.
The pitcher drilled him with a fastball after the home run.
Relievers will sometimes drill a batter to send a message.
Note
Baseball moves the object from the ball to the person. Where the power sense drills the ball somewhere, a pitcher drills the batter. Intent is part of the meaning. A wild pitch that clips someone is simply a hit batter, but drilled suggests the pitcher meant it, so the word carries an accusation as well as a description.
- 12To have sexual intercourse with someone, penetrating them; a coarse, vulgar term.
The character spends the whole novel bragging about every woman he's drilled.
He'd drill anyone who showed him the slightest interest.
Similarpenetrate, mount, take, bang, poke
Note
Vulgar slang that treats sex as something done to a partner. It uses the same tool-and-labor imagery as plow, poke, root and shaft. It turns up in aggressive song lyrics, SwizZz's "Flu Shot" (2012) among them, and it is not a word to use outside that kind of company. The ordinary meanings of drill are common enough that a careless phrase can be heard as a crude double meaning.
- 13To shoot a person, especially to kill them by shooting.
The hitman drilled his target from across the street.
They'll drill you the moment you step outside.
Similarshoot
Note
Slang from the gunfight. In Paul Radley's My Blue-Checker Corker and Me (1982), a character says one man would rather let another "drill him insteada drawin' against him." The image is of a bullet boring through. Drill up is a variant with the same meaning, and both belong to the dialogue of storytelling rather than to neutral reporting.
- 14A subgenre of trap music marked by gritty, violent lyrics, originating on the South Side of Chicago.
Critics argue that drill documents the reality of life in certain neighborhoods.
UK drill developed its own sound after the style crossed the Atlantic.
Note
A genre born on Chicago's South Side, used as a mass noun and often placed before another noun. Jon Caramanica's 2012 New York Times piece writes of "Chicago's drill scene". Wilfred Chan's 2022 report describes Mayor Eric Adams meeting "drill rappers". W. David Marx's Status and Culture (2022) pairs drill with trap as experimental hip-hop genres.
- 15An individual performance of drill music.
They uploaded the drill they recorded in the basement studio.
Each drill on the mixtape tells a different street story.
Note
This sense turns the genre into something you can count. Where the music style names a sound, this names one track or rendition, so it takes an article and a plural. An artist records a drill or puts several drills on a mixtape, and (67) PR SAD's "One Wish" (2020) dismisses rivals by calling their drills worthless. Use the bare noun for the style and this one for the songs.
- 16A farming implement that makes holes for sowing seed, and is sometimes built to hold seeds and drop them into the holes it makes.
The museum displayed a restored drill that planted seeds in even rows.
Modern drills can sow and fertilize in a single pass.
Note
This is a different word from the boring drill, despite the identical spelling. Its origin is uncertain. It may be the same word as the "trickling stream" sense, and German Rille, which can mean "small furrow," points the same way. John Banville's Ghosts (1993) pairs it with the garden bed: "the outlines of bed and drill" survive in an overgrown kitchen garden.
- 17
- 18A strong, durable cotton fabric woven with a pronounced diagonal (bias) in the weave.
Military uniforms were once tailored from khaki drill.
The jacket's drill lining resisted years of hard wear.
Note
The cloth has its own origin in German Drillich, a word that covers denim and canvas as well as drill itself. It is both countable and uncountable: a jacket is made of drill, but a supplier may stock several drills. The steep diagonal of the weave is what sets it apart from plainer heavy cottons.
- 19Any of several predatory sea snails of the genus Urosalpinx and related groups, especially the oyster drill (Urosalpinx cinerea), that bore holes in the shells of their prey.
The drill rasps through a clam's shell with its file-like tongue.
Beds of young oysters are especially vulnerable to drills.
Note
Named for what it does: these sea snails bore through the shells of their prey as a tool bores through wood. The name comes from the same Middle Dutch verb as the boring verb. The oyster drill, Urosalpinx cinerea, is the species most often meant, and its full name records the prey it is known for.
- 20An Old World monkey of West Africa, Mandrillus leucophaeus, resembling the mandrill but lacking its colorful face.
The drill is one of Africa's most endangered primates.
Researchers photographed a troop of drills crossing the forest trail.
Note
Nothing connects this monkey to the tool. Its name is probably of African origin and is best compared with mandrill, the monkey it most resembles. The two names are worth keeping together, since the drill is described largely by what it lacks: the mandrill's colorful face.
- 21A shallow furrow or channel made in the soil to receive seed when sowing.
He hoed a straight drill down the length of the vegetable bed.
The seeds sat in their drills, waiting for spring warmth.
Similarfurrow
- 22Seeds sown one after another along a furrow, forming a single row.
Each drill of carrots was thinned once the seedlings appeared.
The field showed even drills of young wheat.
Similarrow
- 23A tiny stream of water that trickles along.
Springs through the pleasant meadows pour their drills.
c. 1635, George Sandys - 24To make liquid flow off in small streams or trickles, or to draw water away slowly.
- 25To drag something out or delay it, or to waste time without purpose.
- 26To lure or tempt someone onward, often with false hopes, used with on.
- 27To make something, such as time, ebb or be frittered away little by little.
Showing meanings only.
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Origins
From Middle Dutch drillen, meaning "to bore" or "to move in a circle."
Perhaps the same as Etymology 3; compare German Rille, which can also mean "small furrow."
Source unknown, but probably of African origin; compare mandrill.
From German Drillich ("denim, canvas, drill").