From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpillpill1 /pɪl/ ●●● S3 noun 1 
[countable]MH a small solid piece of medicine that you swallow whole He has to take pills to control his blood pressure. sleeping pills a bottle of vitamin pills2 → the Pill/the pill3 → sugar/sweeten the pill4 → be a pill → a bitter pill (to swallow) at bitter1(7), → morning-after pillCOLLOCATIONSverbstake a pill (=use it by swallowing it)Have you taken your pills?swallow a pillHe swallowed a handful of pills.pop a pill informal (=take one too easily, without thinking about it seriously)Some people just pop a pill to get a good night's sleep.a doctor prescribes pills (=tells someone to take them)Her doctor just prescribed more pills and told her to take it easy.NOUN + pilla sleeping pillI took a sleeping pill and tried to go back to sleep.malaria pills (=pills that prevent malaria)vitamin pillsdiet pills (=pills that are said to help you become thinner)
[countable]MH a small solid piece of medicine that you swallow whole He has to take pills to control his blood pressure. sleeping pills a bottle of vitamin pills2 → the Pill/the pill3 → sugar/sweeten the pill4 → be a pill → a bitter pill (to swallow) at bitter1(7), → morning-after pillCOLLOCATIONSverbstake a pill (=use it by swallowing it)Have you taken your pills?swallow a pillHe swallowed a handful of pills.pop a pill informal (=take one too easily, without thinking about it seriously)Some people just pop a pill to get a good night's sleep.a doctor prescribes pills (=tells someone to take them)Her doctor just prescribed more pills and told her to take it easy.NOUN + pilla sleeping pillI took a sleeping pill and tried to go back to sleep.malaria pills (=pills that prevent malaria)vitamin pillsdiet pills (=pills that are said to help you become thinner) Examples from the Corpus
pill• Do not accept pills or medicines from anyone but your own doctor or the doctor at the clinic.• There are several kinds of contraceptive pills available, and they act in slightly different ways.• I took a couple of pills for my stuffy nose.• The therapy requires dozens of pills a day and to stop even for a short time allows the virus to rebound.• Hannah's being a real pill today.• Not only do sleeping pills impair the function of sleep, they also affect the way you feel the next day.• sleeping pills• Taking pills or powders for headaches and stomach upsets is only adding to your system's toxicity.• Healers who use their hands rather than pills and potions are still treated with scepticism.• Council officials had said earlier the pill would be on the market by mid-1997.take pills• I thought if I do the exercises and take pills and special herbs I will abort the baby, but nothing worked.• A Healthier Prescription Not all physicians who treat fat people encourage them to diet, take pills, or have surgery.• He took pills to get to sleep.• Pretty soon you get patients who are no longer taking pills.• Or do you go through a rigmarole of inserting diaphragms or taking pills?• She don't sleep too well, and she gets bad dreams even though she takes pills and that to help her sleep.• They take pills, they cut their wrists, they stick a pistol in their mouth.• She's sleeping much better now, and she don't have to take pills no more.pillpill2 verb [intransitive] American English if a piece of clothing pills, especially a sweater, it forms little balls on the surface of the cloth after it has been worn or washed→ See Verb tableOrigin pill (1400-1500) Latin pilula, from pila “ball” 