different between atilt vs tilt

English

Alternative forms

• a-tilt

Etymology

a- +? tilt

Adjective

atilt (not comparable)

1. At an angle from the vertical or horizontal.
   • 1902, William Dean Howells, “Worries of a Winter Walk” in Literature and Life, New York: Harper, p. 37,^[1]

     When I came to the river, I ached in sympathy with the shipping painfully atilt on the rock-like surface of the brine, which broke against the piers, and sprayed itself over them like showers of powdered quartz.

   • 1918, Winston Churchill, A Traveller in War-Time, New York: Macmillan, Chapter 3, p. 77,^[2]

     In other villages the shawled women sat knitting behind piles of beets and cabbages and apples, their farm-carts atilt in the sun.

   • 1954, Allen Ginsberg, Journal entry in Gordon Ball (ed.), Journals, New York: Grove, 1977, p. 70,

     Pink bedroom lamp, shade atilt over Uncle Abe’s ancient clean radio,

   Synonym: tilted

Adverb

atilt (not comparable)

1. At an angle from the vertical or horizontal; at the point of falling over.
   • 1659, Nicholas Culpeper, Culpeper’s School of Physick, London: N. Brook, “Doctor Diets Directory,” p. 300,^[3]

     Ale should not be drunk under five dayes old; new Ale is unwholsome, sowre Ale, and dead, and Ale which do stand atilt is most unwholesome.

   • 1733, Alexander Pope, The Impertinent, London: John Wileord, p. 12,^[4]

     In that nice Moment, as another Lye

     Stood just a-tilt, the Minister came by.

   • 1928, Maurice Walsh, While Rivers Run, London: W. & R. Chambers, Chapter 24,^[5]

     […] the slope flattened to a wide shelf where limestone cropped through the heather and many huge boulders were scattered atilt.

   • 1969, Ray Bradbury, “The Haunting of the New” in I Sing the Body Electric!, New York: Knopf p. 136,^[6]

     Had earthquakes shaken the windows atilt so they mirrored intruders with distorted gleams and glares?

2. Tilting or as if tilting (charging with a lance, like a knight on horseback in a joust).
   • c. 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, Act III, Scene 2,^[7]

     What will you do, good grey-beard? break a lance,

     And run a tilt at death within a chair?

   • 1669, Samuel Lee, Contemplations on Mortality, London, Chapter 7, p. 69,^[8]

     The shadow of death to David is but the shadow of evill. Though ten thousand Curiassiers run upon him atilt with envenom’d and poysoned spears, he layes him down in the bosome of God, he sleeps in peace;

   • 1684, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, London, Canto 2, p. 79,^[9]

     Make feeble Ladies, in their Works,

     To fight like Termagants and Turks;

     To lay their native Arms aside,

     Their modesty, and ride a-stride;

     To run a-Tilt at Men, and wield

     Their naked tools in open field;

   • 1895, F. F. Montrésor, Into the Highways and Hedges, New York: Appleton, Part 2, Chapter 9, p. 235,^[10]

     Other people may ride atilt against all the problems one bruises head and heart over. Good luck go with them, and more power to their elbows!

Preposition

atilt

1. Diagonally over or across.

   Synonym: aslant

   • 1911, Jennie Brooks, Under Oxford Trees, Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham, p. 80,^[11]

     A butterfly flew into the garden, danced a stately minuet mid-air, courtsied, and settled atilt the top rail of the old “snake fence.”

   • 1982, Jean Scott Wood Creighton (as J. S. Borthwick), The Case of the Hook-billed Kites, New York: St. Martin’s Press, Chapter 11, p. 29,^[12]

     [He] was balanced atilt a wooden chair, his legs resting on a low file cabinet.

   • 2004, Tracy Dahlby, Allah’s Torch, New York: William Morrow, Chapter 11, p. 146,^[13]

     With his shy grin, bushy black hair, and thick plastic-framed glasses riding atilt his nose, Reza looked like a high school techno-whiz temporarily locked out of the computer lab.

Anagrams

• T-tail

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?lt/
• Rhymes: -?lt

Etymology 1

From Middle English tilte, from Old English tyltan (“to be unsteady”). Cognate with Icelandic tölt (“an ambling place”).The nominal sense of "a joust" appears around 1510, presumably derived from the barrier which separated the combatants, which suggests connection with tilt "covering".The modern transitive meaning is from 1590; the intransitive use appears 1620.

Verb

tilt (third-person singular simple present tilts, present participle tilting, simple past and past participle tilted)

1. (transitive) To slope or incline (something); to slant. [1590]

2. (jousting) To charge (at someone) with a lance. [1590]
   • ?, Alfred Tennyson, The Marriage of Geraint

     But in this tournament can no man tilt.

3. (intransitive) To be at an angle. [1620]
   • 1701, Nehemiah Grew, Cosmologia Sacra

     The trunk of the body is kept from tilting forward by the muscles of the back.
4. (transitive) To point or thrust a weapon at.
   • 1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, Act V, Scene V, verses 52-54

     I say I quarrell’d with you;
     We did not tilt each other, — that’s a blessing, —
     Good gods! no innocent blood upon my head!

5. (transitive) To point or thrust (a weapon).
   • 1708, John Philips, Cyder

     Sons against fathers tilt the fatal lance.

6. To forge (something) with a tilt hammer.

7. (poker, video games) To play worse than usual (often as a result of previous bad luck or losses).
8. (pinball, of a machine) To intentionally let the ball fall down to the drain by disabling flippers and most targets, done as a punishment to the player when the machine is nudged too violently or frequently.

Synonyms

• slope
• incline
• slant

Coordinate terms

• (photography): pan, cant

Translations

Noun

tilt (plural tilts)

1. A slope or inclination.
2. The inclination of part of the body, such as backbone, pelvis, head, etc.
3. (photography) The controlled vertical movement of a camera, or a device to achieve this.
4. A jousting contest. (countable) [1510]
5. An attempt at something, such as a tilt at public office.
6. A thrust, as with a lance.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Addison to this entry?)

7. A tilt hammer.

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English telt, from Old English teld (“tent”), from Middle Low German telt, perhaps via or influenced by Danish telt. Cognates include German Zelt (“tent”), Old Norse tjald (“tent”) (whence also archaic Danish tjæld (“tent”)). More at teld.

Noun

tilt (plural tilts)

1. A canvas covering for carts, boats, etc. [1450]
2. Any covering overhead; especially, a tent.
   • a. 1669, John Denham, To Sir John Mennis, being invited from Calais to Boulogne, to eat a Pig

     But the rain made an ass
     Of tilt and canvas

Verb

tilt (third-person singular simple present tilts, present participle tilting, simple past and past participle tilted)

1. (transitive) To cover with a tilt, or awning.

Derived terms

• at full tilt
• atilt
• on tilt
• tilt at windmills

References

Anagrams

• Litt

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -?lt

Verb

tilt

1. second- and third-person singular present indicative of tillen
2. (archaic) plural imperative of tillen

Hungarian

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?tilt]
• Rhymes: -ilt

Verb

tilt

1. (transitive) to forbid, prohibit

Conjugation

Derived terms

(With verbal prefixes):

Related terms

Further reading

• tilt in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh: A magyar nyelv értelmez? szótára (’The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962. Fifth ed., 1992: ?ISBN

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English tilt.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?tilt/
• Hyphenation: tilt

Noun

tilt m (invariable)

1. haywire state; breakdown; crash; down; out of order

2. short-circuit (unintended current flow)
3. tilt (pinball machine state)

Derived terms

• andare in tilt
• essere in tilt

Further reading

• tilt in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana