Also 6 tylt(e, 6–7 tilte. (In branch I from TILT v.1 1; in br. II fr. TILT v.1 II.]
I. 1. A combat or encounter (for exercise or sport) between two armed men on horseback, with lances or similar weapons, the aim of each being to throw his opponent from the saddle; = JUST sb.1 1; also, the exercise of riding with a lance, or the like, at a mark, as the quintain.
1511. in Ellis, Orig. Lett., Ser. II. I. 181. Thise iiij Knightes shall present themself … in harneys for the Tylte.
1553. T. Wilson, Rhet. (1580), 13. I mais commende hym for plaiyng at weapons, for runnyng vppon a greate borse, for chargyng his staffe at the Tilt.
1656. Earl Monm., trans. Boccalini’s Advts. fr. Parnass., I. lvii. (1674), 74. [To] spend a hundred thousand Crowns in Tilt and Turney.
1745. Sir C. Williams, in H. Walpole, Mem. Geo. II. (1847), II. App. 396. Low pleasures, such as operas, plays, masquerades, tilts, and tournaments.
1859. Tennyson, Enid, 52. Forgetful of the tilt and tournament.
b. transf. and fig. An encounter, combat, contest; a debate, public dispute or discussion. In 17–18th c. often applied to a duel.
1567. Turberv., Epit. Dame Elyz. Arhundle, 3. Who ran hir race in vertues tylt aright, And neuer had at Fortunes hand the foyle.
a. 1670. Hacket, Abp. Williams, II. (1692), 21. He would not fly the tilt nor start from any colour of accusation.
1693. Humours Town, 27. A modish Tilt upon a foolish hot-headed Punctilio.
1709. Steele, Tatler, No. 39, ¶ 16. We … generally conducted our Dispute and Tilt according to the last that had happen’d between Persons of Reputation.
1882. F. M. Crawford, Mr. Isaacs, ii. I trust that our collision in the flesh has had no worse results than our tilts in print.
1906. Spectator, 3 Feb., 173/2. She enjoys the tilt of rather rough speech.
c. A thrust of a weapon, as at a tilt, Now only fig.
1716. Addison, Freeholder, No. 10, ¶ 5. His Majesty … entertain’d him with the Slaughter of two or three of his Liege Subjects, whom he very dexterously put to Death with the Tilt of his Lance.
1754. Richardson, Grandison (1781), I. xiv. 82. Miss Barnevelt took a tilt in heroics.
1863. Cowden Clarke, Shaks. Char., viii. 200. She has a tilt at him, jeering, joking, mystifying, obfuscating him.
2. A place for holding tilts or justs; a tilting ground or yard; the lists.
a. 1500. Justes May & June, 1507. 68, in Hazl., E. P. P., II. 116. Two seruauntes of this lady of delyte Sholde bemounted armed and redy dyght At atyltes ende.
1530. Palsgr., 183. Vnes lices, a tylte to lerne to juste at.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VIII., 45 b. The kyng … rode about the Tylt.
1564. Haward, Eutropius, VII. 75. He fynyshed sondry pieces of work at Rome among which was … the Tilt [L. forum transitorium], a place for men to run in.
1586. Warner, Alb. Eng., II. ix. (1589), 35. In beaten Pathes, ore boorded Tylthes [? Tyltes] to breake their staffe-like Reeds.
3. Phr. (from 1 or 2). a. To run at (the) tilt: to ride in a tilt or just.
1548. Elyot, Dict., Decurrere in armis, to renne at the tylte in harneys.
1590. Marlowe, Edw. II., V. v. When for her sake I ran at tilt in France, And there unhors’d the Duke of Cleremont.
1611. Cotgr., Courir la lance, to tilt, or, to run at tilt.
1636. P. Randall, in Ann. Dubrensia (1877), 19. As they at Tilt, so wee at Quintain runne.
1649. Jer. Taylor, Gt. Exemp., III. Disc. xx. 143. Henry II was killed running at Tilt.
b. So to run a tilt (see also A-TILT 2, A prep.1); also fig. Also rarely to run tilt.
1591. Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., III. ii. 51. Break a Launce, and runne a-Tilt at Death.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 145. If you make two such bodies … to run a tilt upon such a line of odd leastings.
1663. Butler, Hud., I. II. 391.
| To run a-Tilt at Men, and wield | |
| Their naked tools in open field. |
1762–71. H. Walpole, Vertue’s Anecd. Paint. (1786), I. 158. The next … exhibits two knights running a tilt on the foreground.
1831. Carlyle, in Froude, Life (1882), II. viii. 170. With her … I was provoked…, so pert was she, to run tilt, and I fear transfix her.
1871. Miss Mulock, Fair France, i. 3. Like Don Quixote with his windmill … it is running a tilt against perfectly imaginary foes.
1891. Temple Bar Mag., Sept., 102. He runs tilt against the hypocrisies of social life.
c. Full tilt (advb. phr.): at full speed and with direct thrust; with utmost adverse force or impetus.
a. 1600[?]. Hist. Tom Thumb, II. 45, in Hazl., E. P. P., II. 213. The cook was running on full tilt, When Tem fell from the air.
1679. Hist. Jetzer, 24. Drawing out his knife, [he] made at her Ladyship full tilt.
1861. Temple Bar Mag., IV. 83. Managers of schools should run full tilt at the whole scheme.
1889. Gretton, Memory’s Harkback, 145. The Earl rode full tilt at him as though he would have unhorsed him.
II. 4. The act of tilting, or fact or condition of being tilted (TILT v.1 4); a sudden or abrupt divergence from the normal vertical or horizontal position; inclination upward or downward.
[Implied in quots. 1562, 1658, 1706 in b.]
1837. Babbage, Bridgew. Treat., App. 246. The variation of pressure, and the infirmity of supports broken by weights or softened by heat, to produce tilts.
1859. All Year Round, No 29. 67. The twinkle of his eye, and the saucy tilt of his ragged cap, spoke volumes.
1872. Routledge’s Ev. Boy’s Ann., April, 262/1. Until one tilt, stronger than the others, upset the lamp.
1906. Daily News, 5 March, 6. Leaning against the wall … with his stool at a perilous tilt.
b. On or upon the tilt: in a tilted position, like a cask or vessel raised on one end or side when nearly empty: = A-TILT 1. Also fig.
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 194. Till tubbe stande a tilte.
1658. T. Goodwin, Fair Prospect, Ep. Ded. When her natural strength, and Abilities began to run low, and on Tilt, as it were; Her Spiritual affections seemed as if but fresh broached.
1706. Baynard, in Sir J. Floyer, Hot & Cold Bath., II. 419. When (low drawn) Time’s upon the Tilt, Few Sands and Minutes left to run.
1712. Spect., No. 292, ¶ 4. Liberality … performed with such Chearfulness … that may shew Good-nature and Benevolence overflowed, and do not, as in some Men, run upon the Tilt, and taste of the Sediments of a grutching uncommunicative Disposition.
c. Geol. An abrupt upheaval of strata to a considerable angle from the horizontal. d. gen. A slope, or sloping portion, of the surface of the ground.
1859. Page, Geol. Terms, Tilted up, applied to strata that are suddenly or abruptly thrown up at a high angle of inclination. Tilts of this nature are usually accompanied by fractures and crushings of the strata.
1903. G. A. Smith, in Expositor, Jan., 7. This tilt towards Olivet does not exhaust the eastern bent and disposition of the city.
1910. Daily News, 27 Aug., 4. As we crossed a tilt of the torn heath I saw suddenly between myself and the moon a black shapeless pile.
† 5. The liquor, or sediment, obtained by tilting a vessel; dregs, lees. Obs.
a. 1603. T. Cartwright, Confut. Rhem. N. T. (1618), 449. The tilt and lees of traditions, dregges of custome, and poyson of Popish decrees.
6. A contrivance used in North America in fishing through a hole in the ice, in which a stick or cross-piece is tilted up when the fish takes the hook.
1891. in Cent. Dict.
7. In Newfoundland, A pier on which fishermen unload and dress their fish.
1891. in Cent. Dict.
8. Short for TILT-HAMMER.
1831. J. Holland, Manuf. Metal, I. 241. The annexed figure is the plan of a tilt.
1858. Greener, Gunnery, 167. [By] welding and forging by the heavy hammer, reducing by a tilt and rolling down to the smallest description of rod, a most excellent, tenacious, and dense body of iron is thus obtained.
1896. Daily News, 27 Jan., 8/5. The activity at the forges, rolling mills, and tilts where large quantities … are prepared.
III. 9. The stilt or long-legged plover of North America. (Cf. TILT-UP A. 2.)
1831. A. Wilson & Bonaparte, Amer. Ornith., III. 77. The name by which this bird is known on the seacoast is the stilt or tilt, or long-shanks.
1859. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., Lawyer. 1. (Himantopus nigricollis.) The black-necked Stilt … known also by the names of Tilt and Longshanks.
IV. 10. attrib. and Comb., as tilt-day, -horse; tilt-cart, a cart of which the body can be tilted so as to empty out the contents; tilt-forge, a forge in which a tilt-hammer is used; tilt guard: see under TILT-YARD; tilt house = tilt-mill (b); tilt-mill, (a) the machinery for working a tilt-hammer; (b) a building in which a tilt-hammer is worked; tilt-rod, a curved rod projecting from the rear of a tricycle so as to catch the ground in the event of the machine being tilted backward; tilt-staff, a staff used instead of a lance in tilting; tilt-wheel, a little wheel at the end of the tilt-rod of a tricycle. See also TILT-HAMMER, TILT-YARD.
1844. Stephens, Bk. Farm, II. 660. If they are *tilt or coup-carts, he elevates the front a few inches.
1605. Camden, Rem., 174. At the next *Tilte-day following.
1836. Blackw. Mag., XXXIX. 339. We passed some usines, *tilt-forges, where the makers of nails [etc.] use the power to tilt hammers of small water wheels placed on one of the … streams.
1894. Times, 28 May, 6/1. The 2nd Life Guards, furnishing the *tilt guard, sent a squadron of about 50 of all ranks.
1909. Daily Chron., 20 Feb., 5/3. What we call the Horse Guards, which was then called the Tilt Yard (where the guard, I think, is still called the Tilt guard).
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 178. A *Tilt horse, alias a beere horse to bee, Which wouldst thou bee?
1864. Strauss, etc., Eng. Workshops, 90. Two hammer or *tilt houses.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 337. The *tilt-mills employed in the manufacture of steel.
1912. J. T. Fowler, Lett. to Editor. Modern tricycles cannot be tilted backward, and so do not require *tilt-rods.
1650. W. Saunderson, Aulicus Coquin., 69. He medled not with the *Tilt-staff.
1886. Cycl. Tour. C. Gaz., IV. 144. *Tilt wheels loose are very noisy.
