Obs. exc. dial. Also 6 phil, 7 fil. [var. of THILL.]
1. pl. The thills or shafts of a cart. sing. The pair of shafts, ‘the space between the shafts’ (J.).
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., III. ii. 48. And you draw backward weele put you i’th fils.
1632. Rowley, Woman never Vext, iii.
| I will | |
| Give you the fore Horse place, and I wilbe in the | |
| Fill’s, because you are the elder Tree, and I the | |
| Young Plant. |
1707. Mortimer, Husb., 165. This Mule being put in the Fill of a Cart … run away with the Cart, and Timber, half way up the steepest Part of the Hill, before they could stop him.
1753. in Johnson.
2. Comb., as fill-horse = shaft-horse.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., II. ii. 100. Thou hast got more haire on thy chin, then Dobbin my philhorse has on his taile.
1648. Herrick, Hesper. (1844), II. 38.
| Some cross the fill-horse, some with great | |
| Devotion stroke the home-borne wheat. |
1695. Kennett, Par. Antiq., Gloss., s.v. Pullanus, The horse which goes in the rods is commo[n]ly called the fillar, and the fill-horse.
a. 1825. in Forby, Voc. E. Anglia.
