atilt

See also: a-tilt

English

Alternative forms

• a-tilt

Etymology

a- +‎ tilt

Adjective

atilt (not comparable)

1. At an angle from the vertical or horizontal.

   The child listened, her head atilt.

   • 1902, William Dean Howells, “Worries of a Winter Walk”, in Literature and Life‎^[1], New York: Harper, page 37:

     When I came to the river, I ached in sympathy with the shipping painfully atilt on the rock-like surface of the brine, which broke against the piers, and sprayed itself over them like showers of powdered quartz.

   • 1918, Winston Churchill, chapter 3, in A Traveller in War-Time‎^[2], New York: Macmillan, page 77:

     In other villages the shawled women sat knitting behind piles of beets and cabbages and apples, their farm-carts atilt in the sun.

   • 1954, Allen Ginsberg, Journal entry in Gordon Ball (ed.), Journals, New York: Grove, 1977, p. 70,

     Pink bedroom lamp, shade atilt over Uncle Abe’s ancient clean radio,

   Synonym: tilted

Adverb

atilt (not comparable)

1. At an angle from the vertical or horizontal; at the point of falling over.

   He wore his hat rakishly atilt.

   • 1659, Nicholas Culpeper, “Doctor Diets Directory”, in Culpeper’s School of Physick‎^[3], London: N. Brook, page 300:

     Ale should not be drunk under five dayes old; new Ale is unwholsome, sowre Ale, and dead, and Ale which do stand atilt is most unwholesome.

   • 1733, Alexander Pope, The Impertinent‎^[4], London: John Wileord, page 12:

     In that nice Moment, as another Lye
     Stood just a-tilt, the Minister came by.

   • 1928, Maurice Walsh, chapter 24, in While Rivers Run‎^[5], London: W. & R. Chambers:

     […] the slope flattened to a wide shelf where limestone cropped through the heather and many huge boulders were scattered atilt.

   • 1969, Ray Bradbury, “The Haunting of the New”, in I Sing the Body Electric!‎^[6], New York: Knopf, page 136:

     Had earthquakes shaken the windows atilt so they mirrored intruders with distorted gleams and glares?

2. Tilting or as if tilting (charging with a lance, like a knight on horseback in a joust).

   to run / ride atilt at someone or something

   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     What will you do, good grey-beard? break a lance,
     And run a tilt at death within a chair?

   • 1669, Samuel Lee, chapter 7, in Contemplations on Mortality‎^[7], London, page 69:

     The shadow of death to David is but the shadow of evill. Though ten thousand Curiassiers run upon him atilt with envenom’d and poysoned spears, he layes him down in the bosome of God, he sleeps in peace;

   • 1663, [Samuel Butler], “The Second Part of Hudibras”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, →OCLC; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge: University Press, 1905, →OCLC, page 79:

     Make feeble Ladies, in their Works,
     To fight like Termagants and Turks;
     To lay their native Arms aside,
     Their modesty, and ride a-stride;
     To run a-Tilt at Men, and wield
     Their naked tools in open field;

   • 1895, F. F. Montrésor, Into the Highways and Hedges, New York: Appleton, Part 2, Chapter 9, p. 235,^[8]

     Other people may ride atilt against all the problems one bruises head and heart over. Good luck go with them, and more power to their elbows!

Preposition

atilt

1. Diagonally over or across.

   Synonym: aslant

   • 1911, Jennie Brooks, Under Oxford Trees‎^[9], Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham, page 80:

     A butterfly flew into the garden, danced a stately minuet mid-air, courtsied, and settled atilt the top rail of the old “snake fence.”

   • 1982, Jean Scott Wood Creighton (as J. S. Borthwick), The Case of the Hook-billed Kites, New York: St. Martin’s Press, Chapter 11, p. 29,^[10]

     [He] was balanced atilt a wooden chair, his legs resting on a low file cabinet.

   • 2004, Tracy Dahlby, chapter 11, in Allah’s Torch,‎^[11], New York: William Morrow, page 146:

     With his shy grin, bushy black hair, and thick plastic-framed glasses riding atilt his nose, Reza looked like a high school techno-whiz temporarily locked out of the computer lab.

Anagrams

• T-tail