Also 5 telt(e, 5–7 tylt, 6 tylte, 7 tillte [Collateral form of ME. tild, TELD sb., perh. influenced by tent.]
1. A covering of coarse cloth, in early quots. of hair-cloth; an awning; a booth, tent, or tabernacle.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 488/1. Telte, or tente, tentorium.
1547. Privy Council Acts (1890), II. 133. Tyltes of heare to couver the powder.
1556. Towrson, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 110. On shoare, wee made a Tilt with our Oares and saile.
1633. T. Adams, Exp. 2 Peter i. 13. The apostle compares his life to a tabernacle; a little shed or tilt, wherin the immortal soul dwells.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, IV. xii. (Roxb.), 504/1. The coffin had ouer it a tilt or stately frame of wood couered with black.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., 1 July. Machines … fitted with tilts, that project from the seaward ends of them,… to screen the bathers from the view.
2. spec. An awning over a boat.
1616. Middleton & Dekker, Roaring Girl, IV. ii. A boat, with a tilt over it.
1716. Gay, Trivia, I. 164. The rowing Crew To tempt a Fare, cloath all their Tilts in blue.
1887. Besant, The World went, ii. A broad canvas tilt or awning rigged up from stem to stern.
3. An awning or cover for a cart or wagon, usually of canvas or tarpaulin.
1620. Shelton, Quix. (1746), III. xi. 69. The Waggon’s Self was opened, without Tilt or Boughs.
a. 1656. Ussher, Ann., VI. (1658), 228. They covered the Cart with a base dirty tilt made of skins.
1753. Scots Mag., Nov., 541/1. The tilt or some other conspicuous place of his waggon.
1834. Pringle, Afr. Sk., ii. 141. Each wagon is provided with a raised canvas tilt to protect the traveller from sun and rain.
1893. Selous, Trav. S. E. Africa, 24. My waggon … on the hinder part of which stood a tilt or tent where I slept.
4. In Labrador and Newfoundland: A fisherman’s or wood-cutter’s hut.
1895. R. G. Taler, in Outing (U.S.), XXVII. 20/1. A score of shoresmen’s ‘tilts’—rude turf-covered huts, some little cleaner than the Esquimaux’ habitations.
1906. Toilers of Deep, June, 150/2 (Labrador). A few wooden ‘tilts’ nestled at the edge of the river…. The ‘tilts’ are all very much alike—the general ‘living-room,’… and the beds in curtained-off recesses. The little colony … come from their homes at Cape Charles only for the winter’s trapping and wood-cutting.
5. attrib. and Comb., as tilt-maker, -weaver, -window; tilt-like adj.; also tilt-bonnet, a woman’s or girl’s bonnet in the form of a wagon-tilt, made by bending a piece of pasteboard into a half-cylinder, and covering it with linen or calico, a drawing-string holding it in shape, the material being extended to cover the crown and form a curtain (T. Hardy): cf. coal-scuttle bonnet; tilt-cloth, = senses 1–3; † tilt-hair, ? hair-cloth for tilts; tilt-roof, ‘a round-topped roof, shaped like a tilt or wagon-cover’ (Knight, Dict. Mech., 1877); † tilt-sail, ? a sail made of coarse cloth; tilt-wherry, a wherry having a tilt, a TILT-BOAT.
1874. T. Hardy, Far fr. Madding Crowd, xxv. The women … wore *tilt bonnets covered with nankeen.
1611. in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. IV. 432. For a *tylt cloth, 2s. 6d.
1790. Luckombe, Eng. Gazetteer, III. Witney, Oxf. … Tilt-cloths for bargemen are likewise made here.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 488/1. *Telte hayyr [H., A., P. telt, hayre], gauda.
1562. in Rogers, Agric. & Prices, III. 576/1. Tilt hair. 351/2 bolts @ 1/4, 94 pieces @ 11/-/
1834. H. Miller, Scenes & Leg., xiii. (1857), 203. The grey ruins, and the mossy, *tilt-like hillocks.
1847. Addison, Contracts, II. vii. § 2 (1883), 921. The defendant ordered the plaintiff to make him a waggon, and … employed … a *tiltmaker to put on a tilt.
1620. Shelton, Quix. (1746), IV. xxii. 178. The General made all the Gallies strike their *Tilt-sails.
1579. Transcr. Faversham Parish Regr. (MS.). Erosamas Smalwodd, a tylte-weuer.
1573. in Feuillerat, Revels Q. Eliz. (1908), 219. ii *Tylt whirreyes that caryed the Masking geare & Children.
1799. Hull Advertiser, 3 Aug., 4/1. She … thrust it out at one of the *tilt-windows.
