Now literary or arch. Forms: 3–4 tiliere, 4 teoliare, telier, tylier, tileer, 4–5 tilier, tylyer, tilyer, 5 tylyar, telar, tillour, tylere, tyllare, 5–6 tyllar, 6 tyller, Sc. telare, 5– tiller. [ME. tiliere, taking the place of OE. tilia (TILIE), f. tilian, TILL v.1 + -ere, -ER1; subseq. spelt conformably to the verb.] One who tills the soil, or cultivates any crop or plant; a husbandman, cultivator; a farmer or farm laborer. See also EARTH-TILLER, land-tiller (LAND sb. 10 b).
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 1482. Esau wilde man buntere, And Iacob tame man tiliere.
c. 1300. Life Jesus (Horstm.), 589. Ich am, he seide, a riȝt soth vine, and mi fader teoliare is.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XIII. 239. For alle trewe trauaillours and tilieres of þe erthe.
c. 1400. Plowman’s T., 453. What knoweth a tillour at the plow The popes name?
c. 1412. Hoccleve, De Reg. Princ., 4418. The Tylere [v.r. tilyer] with his pore cote and land.
1530. Palsgr., 187. Uigneron, a tyller of vygnes.
1661. J. Childrey, Brit. Baconica, 11. The tiller can commonly take but two crops of wheat.
1767. A. Young, Farmer’s Lett. People, 74. The little farmer is always considered as the chief tiller of his land.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., iii. I. 418. The remuneration of workmen employed in manufactures has always been higher than that of the tillers of the soil.
