Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The handle of a weapon or tool.
- idiom. to the hilt To the limit; completely: played the role to the hilt.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. That part of a sword, dagger, or similar weapon which affords a grasp for the hand, and usually a protection for it as well. The part grasped is called the grip, into which the tang of the blade is driven, or which consists of two separate pieces secured to the tang on both sides. The pommel is the projecting ball, disk, or similar appurtenance, which prevents the hand from slipping from the grip and sometimes serves to counterbalance the blade. The guard is a cross-guard formed of two quillons, or a knuckle-bow, or a basket-hilt, or a combination of these different forms; sometimes also there are two shells or coquilles, one on either side of the hilt, and sometimes there is a kind of inverted bowl or cup of steel surrounding the heel of the blade, and called the cup-guard. (See the above terms, and sword.) Formerly often in the plural, with reference to its combined parts.
- n. A sword or foil.
- n. The handle of a shield.
Wiktionary
- n. The handle of a sword, consisting of grip, guard, and pommel, designed to facilitate use of the blade and afford protection to the hand.
- n. The base of the penis
- v. transitive To provide with a hilt.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A handle; especially, the handle of a sword, dagger, or the like.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the handle of a sword or dagger
Etymologies
- From Old English hilt, hilte. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The hilt is cast metal with antique nickel plate and leather wrap.”
“We borrowed to the hilt from the Chinese, and we couldn't even fight the war without the Chinese, but the market is telling us we can't continue to print and create money out of thin air to fight this war and run the domestic welfare state because it will ruin the dollar, and that's what the dollar is telling us today.”
“The emerald upon his turban was as large as a man's eye, and his sword hilt was studded with turquoise and pearls and the hilt was a blazon of gold.”
“Brydon knew that in time the blood would seep down onto his sword hilt and make the grip slippery.”
“Number one, he's a frustrated jock, who played the old “if you can't do it, talk about it” bit of wish fulfillment to the ever-lovin 'hilt.”
“So all of us who were prudent and saved instead of borrowing to the hilt are about to be well and truly shafted by a bout of hyper-inflation.”
“The people who support Obama to the hilt are the same people who ignore every action he actually takes and cling to the notion that his ‘aspirations’ and stated goals are all that matter.”
“An ultimate Washington insider to the sword hilt, he was the catalyst for the Plame Affair, which for my money (follow the money!) was the most fascinating real-life crime mystery ever, with all the classic elements: spies, traitors, journalists sworn to protect their scumbag sources, smoking guns, powerful people up to and including the president of the United States, a sexy blond lady as the victim.”
The Huffington Post: Scott Shrake: Robert D. Novak Is in the Book
“The sword holds the Eye of Thundera, embedded in its hilt, which is the source of the ThunderCats's power.”
“The hilt was a pair of twined snakes in an intricate triangle of spikes emanating perpendicularly outward from the eye sockets of an open-mouthed snake skull.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hilt’.
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Unknown
coalition, cabinet, tweet, defuse, steep, ancestral, mindset, breach, infraction, egregious, curb, backbite and 282 more...
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And another
retrocausality, brusque, gainsay, cheerio, jaundiced, chamois, caw, craw, fudge, bubbler, shebang, bolo and 244 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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Opethead's list
All Words
deplore, immense, ominouse, dilapidated, dunghill, admonitary, procuring, legilimens, mediocre, implicitly, beseechingly, imperiously and 170 more...
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bloodworm's list
These are words that I enjoy because they are unique, rare, long, or just cool.
circumlocution, hysteresis, schadenfreude, quixotic, loquacious, ennui, sesquipedalian, defenestrate, obfuscate, syzygy, ubiquitous, superfluous and 231 more...
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ideas out loud
bandwagon, middle, via, web, fly, thru, safety, thor, swoosh, top, network effect, matrix and 200 more...
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Short ’n’ sweet
Words of 5 letters or less (thus pithy) that are pretty cool anyway.
pithy, cavil, hilt, trope, elegy, gett, kyrie, sorry, gild, glebe, buxom, iowa and 42 more...
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Stuffie: Get to the Point
Things you go or get to--with "the" (not to be confused with jennarenn's "get" stuffie. :-)
bone, contrary, fore, point, nines, full, gills, highest degree, nth degree, truth, hilt, minute and 23 more...
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Cold Steel
A list of fencing terms, by no means comprehensive.
epee, foil, sabre, buckler, shield, rapier, dagger, hilt, tang, fleche, sabreur, parry and 26 more...
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Slightly Less Cool Four-Letter Words
removed from the "Really Cool Four-Letter Words," which was getting too populous for my taste.
rank, stew, clod, kite, glee, sulk, pert, posh, hilt, lark, foil, doom and 29 more...
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Morte d'Arthur.01
pomp, pretense, wrought, lamenting, scabbard, homage, vexed, anvil, venture, realm, sovereign, remote and 5 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hilt.
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