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▪ I. stilt, n.|stɪlt|
Also 4–6 stilte, 5–6 stylt(e.
[ME. stilte, cogn. w. (M)LG., MDu. stelte (mod.LG. stelte, stilte, Du. stelt), OHG. stelza (MHG., mod.G. stelze), Sw. stylta, Da. stylte; also LG. stelter, Norw. styltra.
The relation between the forms is somewhat obscure; they apparently point to three OTeut. ablaut-types *steltjōn-, *staltjōn-, *stultjōn-. The Teut. root *stelt- (:—pre-Teut. *steld-) conjectured to mean ‘to walk stiffly’, seems to be represented also in MHG. stolzen to limp, Sw. stulta to totter, stagger, and perh. (if the word be native Teut.) in OFris. stult, LG. stolt, HG. stolz stately, proud (see stout a.).]
1. The handle of a plough. Occas. also with reference to other farm implements. dial.
c1340Nominale (Skeat) 854 Manuel et tenoun Handle and stilte. 1523,1581[see plough-stilt]. 1653W. Blithe Engl. Improver Impr. 190 For the Plough-handles, some call them Stilts, and some Hales, and some Staves. 1798C. Cruttwell Gazetteer (1808) s.v. Pomona, The plough..is of singular construction, having only one stilt. 1829Scott Rob Roy Introd. 2nd half, He..shot MacLaren when between the stilts of his plough. 1840Penny Cycl. XVIII. 272/1 The stilts or handles, of which there may be one or two, direct the plough. 1880[A. J. Munby] Dorothy 35 Driving her furrows so straight..Guiding the stilts with a grasp skilful and strong as a man's. 1957E. E. Evans Irish Folk Ways x. 129 The Irish were amazed when they first saw a ploughman with a Scots plough both driving the horses and holding the stilts. 1971Country Life 20 May 1203/1, I take the ‘stilts’ of the big grass cutter and struggle behind it. 1973Ibid. 22 Feb. 474/1 My going to the plough that morning wasn't the first occasion upon which I had set my hands to the stilts.
2. a. A crutch. Obs. exc. dial.
In quot. 1520 applied to a crutch-headed walking-stick as figured on a brass.
c1320Sir Tristr. 2956 On astilt he com þo Ful swiþe. a1375Joseph Arim. 335 Verely she was heled, and left her styltes thore, And on her fete went home resonably well. 14..Beryn 2380 A Crepill he saw comyng..Oppon a stilt vndir his kne. 1520Brass in Ingoldmells Church, Pray for the sowle of Wylliam Palmer wyth the stylt. c1590Marlowe Jew of Malta ii. 977 (Brooke) I haue laugh'd agood to see the cripples Goe limping home to Christendome on stilts. 1658A. Fox tr. Wurtz's Surg. ii. xxvi. 170 This party carried it [a recovered limb] as well as any did with a stilt. 1697in M'Kerlie's Hist. Lands Galloway (1870) I. 245 You..did..beatt her almost to death with the stilt wherewith she walked. a1825Forby Voc. E. Anglia, Stilts, crutches.
†b. gen. A prop, support. In quot. fig. Obs.
1633Wariston Diary (S.H.S.) 34 God as it wer..up⁓halding the by three stilts of fayth love and hope.
3. a. Each of a pair of props, usually slender wooden poles with a foot-rest some distance above the lower end, for enabling a person to walk with the feet raised from the ground, as over a marshy place, a stream, etc., the upper end being held by the hand or under the arm, or (in a modified form) strapped to the legs, or formerly sometimes fastened beneath the feet. (The ordinary current sense.) Phrase, to walk on (formerly † in) stilts.
c1440Promp. Parv. 475/2 Stylte, calepodium, lignipodium. c1460Burlesque in Rel. Ant. I. 86 Dore-bundys stalkyng one stylttus. 1519W. Horman Vulg. 279 Let vs daunce patende, or with styltis. 1596Nashe Saffron Walden V 4 b, To consume my bodie as slender as a stilt or a broome-staffe. 1610Holland Camden's Brit. i. 491 Fen-men..who stalking on high upon stilts, apply their mindes, to grasing, fishing and fowling. 1714Addison Spect. No. 559 ⁋6 One of these looked like a Man walking upon Stilts. 1852Thackeray Esmond i. Introd., The actors in the old tragedies,..speaking from under a mask, and wearing stilts and a great head-dress. 1863Geo. Eliot Romola i. viii, Those mysterious giants were really men..balancing themselves on stilts.
b. transf. Applied to long slender legs, or other natural supports (quot. 1665), of an animal, esp. a bird (cf. sense 5).
1597A. M. tr. Guillemeau's Fr. Chirurg. 50 b, Those which we saye to be hipped and legged, or have a payere of goode and stedfast stiltes vnder them. 1665Sir T. Herbert Trav. (1677) 26 This fish..wanting fins; in place whereof she is aided with two paps, which are not only suckles, but serve for stilts to creep a shoar upon. 1709T. Robinson Vindic. Mosaick Syst. 66 Herns..walking by the Sides of shallow Rivulets upon long Stilts. 1835–6Owen in Todd's Cycl. Anat. I. 272/1 Birds that seek their food in water..wade into rivers and marshes on elevated stilts, as in the Crane, &c.
c. fig. or in figurative expressions, usually with allusion to the artificially raised position or long strides of a person walking on stilts: cf. stilted 2.
1734tr. Rollin's Anc. Hist. (1827) I. 110 æschylus..his muse seemed rather to walk in stilts than in the buskins of his own invention. 1751Fielding Amelia v. i, Booth offered to explain, but to no purpose; the colonel was got into his stilts. 1781H. Walpole Let. to W. Mason 14 Apr., Hurlothrumbo talked plain English in comparison of this wight on stilts [Dr. Johnson]. 1818Hazlitt Engl. Poets i. (1870) 13 When artists or connoisseurs talk on stilts about the poetry of painting. 1826Landor Imag. Conv., Ld. Brooke & Sidney Wks. 1846 I. 6/1 Ambition is but Avarice on stilts and masked. 1861C. Benson in Macm. Mag. Feb. 275 The whole audience raised itself on the stilts of expectation. 1883Hall Caine Cobw. Crit. vii. 199 Lifting himself into notoriety on the stilts of blasphemy.
4. In various technical senses.
a. Each of a set of posts or piles on which a building (esp. of primitive construction) is raised from the ground, or which are fixed under water to support the pier of a bridge, etc. (In quot. 1697 transf.; cf. sense 3 b.)
1697W. Dampier Voy. I. 54 Neither the black nor white Mangrove grow towering up from stilts or rising roots, as the red doth; but the body immediately out of the ground, like other Trees. 1712E. Cooke Voy. S. Sea 315 The Houses are built with split Bamboes,..standing on Stilts, or Posts. 1739C. Labelye Piers Westm. Bridge 42 Which method is commonly called building upon stilts. 1772C. Hutton Bridges 100 Stilts, a set of piles driven into the space intended for the pier, whose tops being sawed level off about low-water mark, the pier is then raised on them. 1860Burn's Gloss. Techn. Terms 4 Stilts, piles driven into a river at small intervals, and a surrounding row of piles driven closely together, and the interstices filled with stones, to form a foundation for a pier to be built upon. 1883I. L. Bishop Golden Chersonese 217 Below there is a village, with clusters of Chinese houses on the ground, and Malay houses on stilts, standing singly.
b. Arch. A vertical course of masonry placed beneath and continuous with an arch or vault so as to raise the springing of it above the general level, or for a similar purpose beneath or above a column. Cf. stilt v. 1 b, stilted ppl. a. 1 b (b).
1835R. Willis Archit. Mid. Ages vii. 77 The latter [i.e. clerestory or longitudinal arches] are raised upon stilts,..so as to throw their imposts considerably above those of the transverse arches. 1842Civil Engin. & Arch. Jrnl. V. 80/1 The continuous stilt or too lofty stylobate of the College of Surgeons. 1908Lena Milman Sir Chr. Wren 206 Corinthian pilasters, which, by a two-fold stilt above their capitals, reach to the great cornice.
†c. Some appendage to a bell. (Perh. = stay: see stay n.2 2 h, quot. 1871.) Obs.
1672in W. O. Blunt Ch. Chester-le-Street (1884) 98 For cotterels, wedges, and for mending the stilt of the bell.
d. Part of a type-founder's ‘lining-stick’ or lining-gauge: see quot. 1688.
1683Moxon Mech. Exerc., Printing xvii. 155 The Stilt is a thin flat piece of Brass-Plate about a Scaboard thick, and a Double-Pica broad. 1688Holme Armoury iii. xxi. (Roxb.) 262/2 A Letter Founders Lining Stick;..whose seueralls are as followeth... The Stilt, a slender ledge set vnder the side, to tilt vp the fore edge, that letters lying on it may rest against the bottom ledge.
†e. A support for a cask. Obs.
1701Lond. Gaz. No. 3721/3 Several Hogsheads of Claret being ready placed on Stilts,..the Claret was set running.
f. Pottery. A small piece of baked ware placed between pieces of biscuit ware to prevent their adhering to each other in the kiln.
1825J. Nicholson Oper. Mech. 473 Pieces of clay..called stilts, cockspurs,..&c. are put to keep them apart. 1880Janvier Pract. Keramics 70 The pieces are supported and held apart by little fireclay instruments or props, which from their shape derive such names as pins or thimbles, watches, cock-spurs, triangles or stilts.
5. Any bird of the widely-distributed genus Himantopus, characterized by very long slender legs and slender sharp bills, and inhabiting marshes; a long-legged plover. Cf. tilt n.2 9.[Perh. short for stilt-plover or stilt-bird (see 6), or imitated from G. stelze short for bachstelze brook-‘stilt’, an alteration of the OHG. name waȥȥerstelza water-‘stilt’.] 1831Montagu's Ornith. Dict. (ed. Rennie) 496 Stilt (Himantopus melanopterus, Meyer). 1838Audubon Ornith. IV. 247 Black-necked Stilt, Himantopus nigricollis. 1861H. B. Tristram Gt. Sahara iv. 62 The beautiful black-winged stilt, the tamest of waders. c1875Cassell's Nat. Hist. IV. 167 The Stilts have a straight bill, but in other respects they are not unlike the Avocets.
6. attrib. and Comb., as stilt-maker, stilt-vaulting; stilt-legged, stilt-like adjs.; stilt-bird, (a) = sense 5; (b) any long-legged wading bird, a grallatorial bird; † stilt-bond, ? a band by which a stilt is fastened to the leg or foot; stilt-bug (U.S.), any one of the long-legged plant-lice of the family Berytidæ; stilt heel, (a shoe with) a high heel; stilt-heeled a., (of shoes) high-heeled; stilt-man, a man who walks on stilts; stilt-petrel, a petrel of the genus Fregetta, having long legs (also stilt stormy petrel); stilt-plover = sense 5; stilt prolegs, Ent., the prolegs of a caterpillar when unusually long, so as to raise the body; stilt-root, an aerial root, arising from the trunk or lower branches of a tree, and acting to provide support; hence stilt-rooted a.; stilt sandpiper, a long-legged N. American species of sandpiper, Micropalama himantopus; stilt-shank = sense 5; stilt-walker, (a) a person who walks on stilts (also transf.); (b) = stilt-bird (b).
1835–6Owen in Todd's Cycl. Anat. I. 287/2 The *Stilt⁓bird and other Waders. 1870Gillmore tr. Figuier's Reptiles & Birds 294 The Stilt Birds..obtain their name from the excessive length of their legs.
c1475Pict. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 775/14 Hoc subligar, a *styltbonde.
1895Comstock Man. Insects 143 Family Berytidæ. The *Stilt-bugs.
1973R. Rendell Some lie & some Die vi. 49 She was..dressed..in..full, longish skirt, *stilt heels.
1772Nugent Hist. Fr. Gerund II. 437 On *Stilt-heel'd shoes Mounted she Struts. 1948‘P. Wentworth’ Traveller Returns xi. 64 The sheer black stockings, and the stilt-heeled shoes. 1980‘L. Egan’ Motive in Shadow iii. 39 She was wearing..stilt-heeled black patent leather pumps.
1863Bates Nat. Amazon ix. (1864) 247 Flocks of *stilt-legged water-fowl.
1889Hardwicke's Sci.-Gossip XXV. 189/2 The curious postures assumed by the animal [a species of rotifer] upon its long *stilt-like toes.
1625in J. P. Shawcross Hist. Dagenham (1904) 253 *Stilt-makers all, and tanners, shall complain of this disaster, For they will make each muddy lake for Essex Calves a pasture. 1898Westm. Gaz. 27 Sept. 6/2 Stilt⁓makers disavow the intelligence that they are full of orders.
1552Huloet, *Stylt man or goer on a stilte, grallator. 1586Acts Privy Counc. N.S. XIV. 75 Providing..of xij or xvj Scatchemen or Stiltmen in the countie of Lincolne, to be chosen of the best able and most experte men. 1890E. H. Barker Wayfaring in France 37 The stiltmen observed this little comedy with quiet wonder.
1779G. White Selborne, To Barrington 7 May, These birds are of the plover family, and might with propriety be called the *stilt⁓plovers. c1875Cassell's Nat. Hist. IV. 167 The Stilts, or Stilt plovers (Himantopinæ).
1826Kirby & Sp. Entomol. IV. 354 *Stilt Prolegs.
1894F. W. Oliver tr. Kerner's Nat. Hist. Plants I. 756 Trees whose erect trunks are supported by tabular roots and those which are provided with *stilt-roots may at the same time develop columnar roots from their branches. 1930Discovery Nov. 381/1 No account of jungle vegetation..is complete without some mention of the trees with the curious stilt roots and those with the even stranger buttress roots.
1974H. MacInnes Climb to Lost World xii. 221, I pointed..at a *stilt-rooted tree which had grown up with stilts at least fifteen feet clear of the ground... Young stilt roots were growing into the swamp from its base.
1872Coufs N. Amer. Birds 253 Micropalama, *Stilt Sandpiper.
1852Macgillivray Brit. Birds IV. 310 Himantopus. *Stilt-shank.
1884Coues N. Amer. Birds (ed. 2) 782 Fregetta, *Stilt Stormy Petrels.
1861Mayhew Lond. Labour III. 151 Rope dancing and *stilt⁓vaulting.
1863A. J. Munby Diary 20 May in D. Hudson Munby (1972) 162, I saw..two young female acrobats or *stiltwalkers..forlorn and pitiable in their satin shoes & spangles. 1869–73T. R. Jones Cassell's Bk. Birds IV. 1 The Stilt-walkers (Grallatores). 1889F. H. Herrick in Amer. Nat. Nov. 943 A growth of tropical bush, in which we notice the mangrove, the stilt-walker of the tropical swamp. 1891Daily News 3 Apr. 5/6 Sylvain Dornon, the stilt-walker, who is on a tour for a wager from Paris to Moscow.
▪ II. stilt, v.|stɪlt|
[f. stilt n.]
1. trans. To raise as on stilts; to elevate artificially (lit. or fig.).
1649J. H. Motion to Parlt. 26 Some..by the foresaid means stilt themselves into some profession. 1802A. Seward Lett. (1811) VI. 29 Southey told a friend of mine..that it was the finest poetic work which had appeared these fifty years. So Johnson stilted up Blackmore. 1825Hone Every-day Bk. I. 516 The Sole [is] adapted by the workman..to stilt the foot. 1849Dana Geol. ii. (1850) 55 The atoll usually seems to stand as if stilted up in a fathomless sea. 1882Pop. Sci. Monthly XX. 389 In low water the boats often run aground on the sand-bars, and have to be stilted over them with timbers. 1884Tennyson Becket ii. ii, That would stilt up York to twice himself.
b. Arch. To raise (an arch, vault, or other structure) above the ordinary level by a ‘stilt’ or course of masonry beneath (see stilt n. 4 b).
1835R. Willis Archit. Mid. Ages vii. 76 The problem of vaulting an unequally sided rectangle..had early presented itself to the Romans, who..were led to the discovery..of stilting the arches. 1845Paley Gothic Mouldings 66 Decorated bases are often stilted, or raised above the floor,..by graduated stages or tables. a1878Sir G. Scott Lect. Archit. (1879) II. 163 The Roman builders solved the problem..by what is called stilting the narrower arch; that is, raising its springing till its crown becomes level with that of the wider arch.
c. Bookbinding. To bind (a book) in projecting covers so as to make it uniform with a volume of a larger size.
1824Dibdin Libr. Comp. 597 The third volume is often stilted, to make it dress with its companions. 1895Bookseller's Catalogue, In one vol., royal octavo (stilted to folio).
2. To fit (a plough) with a ‘stilt’. dial.
a1883F. Harper in Mod. Scott. Poets VI. 345 Twice forty years..Has passed awa' sin' ‘Airchie Scott’ First fixed thy ribs..An' stiltit thee, an' turned thee oot A noble ploo!
3. intr. To walk on stilts; fig. (of a horse) ? to lift the legs high in walking or running, to prance.
1785Burns Epist. Davie xi, My spavet Pegasus will limp, Till ance he's fairly het; And then he'll hilch, and stilt, and jump, An rin an unco fit. 1861W. W. Webb in Med. Times 29 June 680/1 Our young Blondins do stilt over the artificial Niagaras we construct for them. |