▪ I. teil Now rare or Obs.
(tiːl)
Forms: 6 tilie, 6–7 teyle, 7 teile, tiel, 7–8 tile, teyl, 9 til, 7– teil.
[Partly ad. L. tilia linden-tree; partly a. OF. til (12–14th c. in Godef.), teil (13–17th c., and mod.dial., Berry), masc. forms collateral with tille, teille, ad. L. tilia; cf. It. tiglio, † tilio, beside † tilia (Florio), Sp. tilo, tila, Pg. til, tilia. (Mod.F. has tilleul:—L. *tiliolus, dim. of *tilius.)]
The lime or linden tree, Tilia europæa. Usually teil-tree.
| [1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. cxcii. (MS. Bodl.) lf. 238 b/2 Þe tre tilia..bene haunteþ þe floures þerof and gadreþ þerof swetnes of hony.] 1589 Fleming Virg. Georg. i. 7 The light wood of the Tilie tree is cut downe for a yoke. 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage (1614) 395 Some of them practise diuination with the leaues of the Teil-tree which they fold and vnfold in their hands. 1617 Moryson Itin. i. 26 A faire meadow,..wherein is a faire Lynden or teyle tree. 1646 J. Hall Horæ Vac. 87 Like the shade of a Tile tree, very pleasant though the tree be unfruitfull. 1658 Rowland Moufet's Theat. Ins. 1032 They live on softer leaves, especially on the Tiel-tree. 1694 Addison Virg. Georg. iv. 233 From purple violets and the teile they [bees] bring Their gather'd sweets, and rifle all the spring. 1721 New Gen. Atlas 120 There are stately Walks of Tile-trees on its North Bank. 1837 Wheelwright tr. Aristoph. I. 270 note, Boards of the teil or linden. 1866 Treas. Bot., Til-tree, Tilia europæa. |
| attrib. 1731 J. Moncrieff in Graham Soc. Life Scotl. in 18th C. (1901) I. vii. 52 A little tile-tree water. |
b. In the Bibles of 1568 and 1611, used in one place to render Heb. ēlāh (elsewhere rendered ‘oak’ and once ‘elm’).
| 1568 Bible (Bishops') Isa. vi. 13 As a Teyle tree [so 1611; Vulg. terebinthus, Wyclif terebynt, Coverd. terebyntes, Cranm. terebintes, Geneva elme, Douay and R.V. (1885) terebinth] and the Oke in the fall of their leaues haue yet the sappe remayning in them. 1647 Trapp Comm. Phil. iv. 10 It had..withered, as an Oak in winter..and as a Teyl tree whose sap is in the root. |
▪ II. teil(l
obs. form of tail, teal, till v.