kilter
English
Etymology
A variant of dialectal kelter (“good condition, order”), of uncertain origin.[1][2]
Pronunciation
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- Rhymes: -ɪltə(ɹ)
- Hyphenation: kil‧ter
Noun
kilter (countable and uncountable, plural kilters)
- (chiefly in the negative) Alternative form of kelter (“(good) condition, form, or order; fettle”) [from 17th c.]
- not in kilter
- 1890, Charles Erskine, chapter V, in Twenty Years before the Mast: […], Boston, Mass.: Published by the author, →OCLC, page 72:
- [T]hey are either round-shouldered, knock-kneed, bow-legged, or parrot-toed; some are also badly cross-eyed. It seems as if they can see two different ways at the same time. Jack says they are lop-sided and out of kilter altogether.
- 1909, Robert W[illiam] Service, “The Man from Eldorado”, in Ballads of a Cheechako, Toronto, Ont.: William Briggs, →OCLC, part I, stanza 2, page 71:
- [H]e lived on tinned tomatoes, beef embalmed and sourdough bread, / On rusty beans and bacon furred with mould; / His stomach’s out of kilter and his system full of lead, / But it's over, and his poke is full of gold.
- Alternative form of kelter (“a bad hand of cards in a game”)
Alternative forms
Derived terms
Translations
(good) condition, form, or order
Further reading
- Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “kilter”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
References
- ^ Joseph Wright, editor (1902), “KELTER, sb.1 and v.1”, in The English Dialect Dictionary: […], volume III (H–L), London: Henry Frowde, […], publisher to the English Dialect Society, […]; New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC, page 415, column 2
- ^ Compare “kelter, kilter, n.2”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1901; “kilter, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.