Out of order.
1643. Their Gunnes, they have from the French, and often sell many a score to the English, when they are a little out of frame or Kelter.—R. Williams, ‘A Key into the Language of America,’ p. 177. (N.E.D.)
a. 1657. Ye very sight of [a gun], though out of kilter, was a terrour unto them.—Bradford, ‘Plymouth Plantation’ (1856), p. 235. (N.E.D.)
1681. The seats some burned and others out of kilter.—New England Mag. (1898), p. 450. (N.E.D.)
a. 1848. I can’t crowd it into my narrow belief that Paul’s mental machinery was any ways out of kilter.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ i. 82.
a. 1852. —Till it wears out, or gets out of kelter by some fatal accident.—Id., iii. 8.
1856. ’T won’t be long afore it ’ll be out o’ kilter every where.—Whitcher, ‘The Widow Bedott Papers,’ No. 5.
1856. If the doctors, after Mace Sloper is dead, should open him and find something broke loose, or a flue split, or any thing out of kilter, they may as well know once for all that he did it trying to hold in a laugh.—Knick. Mag., xlviii. 407 (Oct.).
