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A quill is a writing tool made from a moulted flight feather (preferably a primary wing-feather) of a large bird. Quills were used for writing with ink before the invention of the dip pen/steel-nibbed pen, the fountain pen, and, eventually, the ballpoint pen.^[1]

As with the earlier reed pen (and later dip pen), a quill has no internal ink reservoir and therefore needs to periodically be dipped into an inkwell during writing. The hand-cut goose quill is rarely used by modern calligraphers, however, it is still the tool of choice for a few scribes who claim that quills provide an unmatched sharp stroke as well as a greater assortment in writing modes, customisation, and line variability.^{[citation needed]}