Now dial. Forms: 1 (see etymol.); 7– tiller, 8–9 tillar, tellar, teller; 9 dial. tellow, tillow, telly. [App. repr. OE. telʓor, tealʓor str. m., also telʓra wk. m. (see sense 1), extended forms of telʓa wk. masc., ‘branch, bough, twig’ = ON. tjalga fem., MLG., LG., Du. telg, MDu. telch, telg-, m. and n., MHG. zelch, zelge, zilge m.:—OTeut. *telgo(n), telgôn- twig, branch, sprout. Not found in Eng. between 1100 and 1660; the phonetic history is obscure. The dial. tellow, tillow may repr. OE. telʓa.]
† 1. (In OE.) A plant, a shoot, a twig; esp. a shoot or sucker from the root. Obs.
a. 1000. Blickl. Glosses (E.E.T.S.), 261/2. Tealʓras, propagines.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gen. ii. 5. And ælcne telʓor on eorðan ær ðam þe he uppasprunge on eorðan.
a. 1050. Herbarium, in Sax. Leechd., I. 276. Ðeos wyrt … of anum wyrttruman maneʓa telʓran asendeþ. Ibid. Hypericon … Of anum stelan maneʓa telʓran weaxaþ. Ibid., 324. Heo eal … wið þa eorðan hyre telʓran tobrædeþ.
a. 1050. Medicina de Quadrup., ibid. 332. Do on anne telʓran [þæs morbeames] ðe sy adune ʓecyrred.
2. A young tree, a sapling; esp. a stock-shoot, rising from the stock or stool of a felled tree.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva, III. iv. § 29 (Charcoal). This [ladder] they usually make of a curved Tiller fit to apply to the convex shape of the heap.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Tillar (in Husbandry), a small Tree left to grow till it be fellable.
1712. J. James, trans. Le Blond’s Gardening, 50. They are obliged to leave sixteen Tillers on an Acre.
1768. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), I. 322. First shoots up a tender twig, which then becomes a sapling, a waiver, a tellar, and at last a perfect oak laden with acorns.
1794. W. Pearce, Agric. Berks, 55. [They] permit their labourers, during the winter months, to take up the old roots, from which no heir or teller is rising.
1832. Planting, 92. in Libr. Usef. Knowl., Husb., III. Tiller or Tellar, a shoot selected from those produced by a coppice stool to stand for a timber-tree.
1875. Sussex Gloss., Teller, Tillow..., a young oak tree.
1878. N. & Q., 5th Ser. X. 223. The lessee covenants not to cut down tellows and stemners.
3. One of the lateral shoots from the base of the stalk of corn or grass or other herbaceous plant.
1733. Tull, Horse-Hoeing Husb., xi. 132. The same Plant that when poor sends out but Two or Three Tillers, would if well nourish’d … send up a Multitude of Tillers, as is seen in Ho’d Wheat and Sown Wheat.
1759. trans. Duhamel’s Husb., I. xiii. (1762), 70. New stalks, or, as some call it, tillers.
1764. Museum Rust., III. XII. 46. if the season is lost to encrease the number of tillers, we may enlarge the ears.
1811. W. Leslie, Agric. Surv. Moray, Gloss., Tiller, the rising blade of growing corn shooting out several stems from one seed. [Cf. 1828 Craven Gloss., Telly, a single stalk of grass or corn.]
