Now rare or Obs. Forms: 6 tilie, 6–7 teyle, 7 teile, tiel, 7–8 tile, teyl, 9 til, 7– teil. [Partly ad. L. tilia linden-tree; partly a. OF. til (12–14th c. in Godef.), teil (13–17th c., and mod.dial., Berry), masc. forms collateral with tille, teille, ad. L. tilia; cf. It. tiglio, † tilio, beside † tilia (Florio), Sp. tilo, tila, Pg. til, tilia. (Mod. F. has tilleul:—L. *tiliolus, dim. of *tilius.)] The lime or linden tree, Tilia europæa, Usually teil-tree.
[1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. cxcii. (MS. Bodl.), lf. 238 b/2. Þe tre tilia … bene haunteþ þe floures þerof and gadreþ þerof swetnes of hony.]
1589. Fleming, Virg. Georg., I. 7. The light wood of the Tilie tree is cut downe for a yoke.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage (1614), 395. Some of them practise diuination with the leaues of the Teil-tree which they fold and vnfold in their hands.
1617. Moryson, Itin., I. 26. A faire meadow… wherein is a faire Lynden or teyle tree.
1646. J. Hall, Horæ Vac., 87. Like the shade of a Tile tree, very pleasant though the tree be unfruitfull.
1658. Rowland, Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 1032. They live on softer leaves, especially on the Tiel-tree.
1694. Addison, Virg. Georg., IV. 233. From purple violets and the teile they [bees] bring Their gather’d sweets, and rifle all the spring.
1721. New Gen. Atlas, 120. There are stately Walks of Tile-trees on its North Bank.
1837. Wheelwright, trans. Aristoph., I. 270, note. Boards of the teil or linden.
1866. Treas. Bot., Til-tree, Tilia europæa.
attrib. 1731. J. Moncrieff, in Graham, Soc. Life Scotl. in 18th C. (1901), I. vii. 52. A little tile-tree water.
b. In the Bibles of 1568 and 1611, used in one place to render Heb. ēlāh (elsewhere rendered ‘oak’ and once ‘elm’).
1568. Bible (Bishops’), Isa. vi. 13. As a Teyle tree [so 1611: Vulg. terebinthus, Wyclif terebynt, Coverd. terebyntes, Cranm. terebintes, Geneva elme, Douay and R. V. (1885), terebinth] and the Oke in the fall of their leaues haue yet the sappe remayning in them.
1647. Trapp, Comm. Phil. iv. 10. It had … withered, as an Oak in winter … and as a Teyl tree whose sap is in the root.
