Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Either of the two long shafts between which an animal is fastened when pulling a wagon.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A shaft (one of a pair) of a cart, gig, or other carriage. The thills extend from the body of the carriage, one on each side of the horse. See cut under sleigh.
- n. In coal-mining: The surface upon the tram runs.
- n. The under-clay. See under-clay.
Wiktionary
- n. The thin stratum of underclay which lies under a seam of coal; the bottom of a coal-seam.
- n. One of the two long pieces of wood, extending before a vehicle, between which a horse is hitched; a shaft.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One of the two long pieces of wood, extending before a vehicle, between which a horse is hitched; a shaft.
- n. (Mining) The floor of a coal mine.
WordNet 3.0
- n. one of two shafts extending from the body of a cart or carriage on either side of the animal that pulls it
Etymologies
- Origin unknown. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English thille, perhaps from Old English, plank. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I started to learn eight of the Eighteen Buddha Palms forms (this is all thill so new to me, so forgive if I mess it up.) and then we did forty minutes of "real" t'ai chi chuan, where I started to learn a Yang-style form, and Bob taught me a little bit about the history of the martial art and the evolution of Chen style into Yang style, with associated legendry.”
“Comments (20) thill wrote on November 28, 2007 9: 12 AM:”
Election Central | Talking Points Memo | Virginia GOP Demands Loyalty Oath From Primary Voters
“Comments (7) thill wrote on November 19, 2007 10: 11 AM:”
“All this money for Iraq, soon thill tell us there is no money for s. s and medicare way to go Dems!”
Dem Leadership: If We'd Confronted Bush On Iraq, White House Would Have Criticized Us
“Thanks. thill wrote on November 20, 2007 6: 47 PM:”
“A small army of Greeks defended the pass against a vast army of Persians under Xerxes. thill (thil), shaft of a carriage. thole (thol), pin set in the gunwale of a boat to serve as a fulcrum for the oar in rowing. thorough-brace (thur'o-bras '), a leather strap supporting the body of a carriage. thorp (thorp), a small village.”
“There was the _roulage_: an immense cart filled with goods of all descriptions, and drawn by four or five horses, ranged one before another, each decked with a merry string of bells, and generally rising in graduated proportions from the full-sized leader to the enormous thill horse, who bore the heat and burden of the day.”
“The object of this invention is to so combine the parts of shafts for vehicles that they may be readily transposed and re-employed to form the tongue without removing the thill arms or hounds from the Mr. William Jones, of Kalamazoo, Mich., has patented an improved box which is useful for various purposes, but is particularly intended for shipping fourth class mail matter.”
“Lord worshipped might he be! what a beard hast thou got! thou hast got more hair on thy chin than Dobbin my thill-horse has on his tail.”
“Now no dray horse moves more readily to the thill than I to the painter's chair," he said.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘thill’.
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Coal Mining Terms
Coal mining has engendered fascinating subcultures in industry, labor, music, folklore, environment and energy. It has a rich vocabulary as well, and I've encountered some gorgeous mining words. I...
firedamp, scrip, bituminous, anthracite, company store, blackdamp, brattice, bug dust, tipple, whitedamp, float dust, fly ash and 136 more...
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In the Collieries
A collection of coal mining and colliery terms. Some British, some Scots, and some, Other. Many terms are quite to the point; others colorful and imaginative.
Also see Middlesmith's li...fire-damp, black-damp, choke-damp, skip, basket, gallery, Gregory lamp, pit, balance, balancer, tenter, coupler and 313 more...
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Columns & Rows
Wordnik is organized as columns.
What a row!peripteral, peristyle, orthostichy, pseudo-dipteral, ployment, indentation, plinth, stylobate, balustrade, chine, trompe, telamon and 75 more...
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discoveries
These are lexical items new to me that I've discovered in actual use (i.e. not in dictionaries, lists, or this site).
Looking back over this list, I haven't the slightest idea what mos...haymow, hawsepipe, stridor, bariatric, autotelic, apotropaic, cyanotype, tourelle, autobody, zudecca, stifado, corbeille and 1073 more...
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Poetrie: The Deacon's Masterpiece, or...
By Oliver Wendell Holmes (sr.?). Thanks to slumry for pointing out the link (a long time ago) to this.
Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a log...dunce, perplexed, huddup, ewe-necked, rat-tailed, encore, back-crossbar, whippletree, masterpiece, dasher, bison-skin, linchpin and 19 more...
Tweets
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