Also 5 þylle, thyl, 6 thyll. Cf. also FILL sb.2 [Of uncertain origin: the 14th c. þille, þylle is identical in form with OE. þille, glossed tabulāta, tabulāmen, tabulāmentum, i.e., ‘board, deal, boarding, flooring,’ but the sense ‘pole or shaft’ is so different that, without further evidence, it seems unsafe to connect them.
For the OE. þille see THEAL: none of the cognate words there cited show any approach to the mod. sense of thill.]
The pole or shaft by which a wagon, cart, or other vehicle is attached to the animal drawing it, esp. one of the pair of shafts between which a single draught animal is placed. Applied (a) in sing. to the single pole, rarely to the pair of shafts (obs.); (b) in pl. to the pair of shafts.
(a) 14[?]. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 615/35. Temo, a thylle.
14[?]. Metrical Voc., ibid., 628/20. Reda, thylle.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 491/1. Thylle, of a carte, temo.
1530. Palsgr., 280/2. Thyll of a carte, le lymon.
1611. Cotgr., Alimonner, to put into … the thill of a cart. Ibid., Limon,… the Thill of a waine, wagon, &c.; In which sense (because a Thill consists of two beames) it is most vsed in the Plurall number.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xviii. (Roxb.), 139/1. The two side shafts make one thill.
1770. Langhorne, Plutarch (1879), I. 256/2. That piece of wood with which they supported the thill of a waggon.
(b) c. 1325. Gloss. W. de Bibbesw., in Wright, Voc., 168. Les lymouns, the thilles.
c. 1400. Laud Troy Bk., 12820. Fals fortune of him now filles, He put him riȝt In hir thilles.
c. 1425. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 665/30. Hic limo, thyllys.
1707. Mortimer, Husb. (1721), I. 360. If the fore Wheels were as high as the hinder Wheels, and if the Thills were fixed under the Axis.
1890. O. Crawfurd, Round the Cal. in Portugal, 104. The mule and the horse work between the thills of the cart and of the plough.
b. attrib. and Comb., as thill hame, harness, pin; thill-coupling, -jack, -tug: see quot. 1877; thill-saddle = SADDLE sb. 3. Also THILL-HORSE.
14[?]. Nom., in Wr.-Wülcker, 727/33. Hic limarillum, a thylpyn.
1549. Rutland MSS. (1905), IV. 570. Thill hames, xl pare.
1776. in Hughes, Scour. White Horse, v. The same time a Thill harness will be run for by Cart-horses, &c.
1807. A. Young, Agric. Essex (1813), I. 107. 3 thill saddles, breechins, cruppers, &c.
1859. Hughes, Scour. White Horse, v. Varmer Mifflin’s mare … won a new Cart-saddle and thill-tugs. Ibid., vi. The great horses in their thill harness.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., Thill-coupling, a device for fastening the shafts to the fore-axle. Ibid., Thill-jack, a tool for attaching the thills of a carriage to the clips of the axle. Ibid., Thill-tug, a leathern loop depending from the harness saddle to hold the shaft of a carriage.
