▪ I. thill1
(θɪl)
Also 5 þylle, thyl, 6 thyll. Cf. also fill n.2
[Of uncertain origin: the 14th c. þille, þylle is identical in form with OE. þille, glossed tabulāta, tabulāmen, tabulāmentum, i.e. ‘board, deal, boarding, flooring’, but the sense ‘pole or shaft’ is so different that, without further evidence, it seems unsafe to connect them.
For the OE. þille see theal: none of the cognate words there cited show any approach to the mod. sense of thill.]
a. The pole or shaft by which a wagon, cart, or other vehicle is attached to the animal drawing it, esp. one of the pair of shafts between which a single draught animal is placed. Applied (a) in sing. to the single pole, rarely to the pair of shafts (now only U.S.); (b) in pl. to the pair of shafts.
| (a) 14.. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 615/35 Temo, a thylle. 14.. Metrical Voc. ibid. 628/20 Reda, thylle. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 491/1 Thylle, of a carte, temo. 1530 Palsgr. 280/2 Thyll of a carte, le lymon. 1611 Cotgr., Alimonner, to put into..the thill of a cart. Ibid., Limon,..the Thill of a waine, wagon, &c.; In which sense (because a Thill consists of two beames) it is most vsed in the Plurall number. 1688 R. Holme Armoury iii. xviii. (Roxb.) 139/1 The two side shafts make one thill. 1770 Langhorne Plutarch (1879) I. 256/2 That piece of wood with which they supported the thill of a waggon. c 1873 E. Dickinson Poems (1955) III. 869 Elijah's wagon has no thill—Was innocent of wheel. 1901 Century Mag. Jan. 452/1 I'm like a bronco in a buggy. I want to bust a thill every time I feel the rein. 1944 Sun (Baltimore) 16 May 10/3 An old slave cabin and an old ox thill. |
| (b) c 1325 Gloss. W. de Bibbesw. in Wright Voc. 168 Les lymouns, the thilles. c 1400 Laud. Troy Bk. 12820 Fals fortune of him now filles, He put him riȝt In hir thilles. c 1425 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 665/30 Hic limo, thyllys. 1707 Mortimer Husb. (1721) I. 360 If the fore Wheels were as high as the hinder Wheels, and if the Thills were fixed under the Axis. 1890 O. Crawfurd Round the Cal. in Portugal 104 The mule and the horse work between the thills of the cart and of the plough. |
b. attrib. and Comb., as thill hame, thill harness, thill pin; thill-coupling, -jack, -tug: see quot. 1877; thill-saddle = saddle n. 3. Also thill-horse.
| 14.. Nom. in Wr.-Wülcker 727/33 Hic limarillum a thylpyn. 1549 Rutland MSS. (1905) IV. 570 Thill hames, xl pare. 1776 in Hughes Scour. White Horse v, The same time a Thill harness will be run for by Cart-horses, &c. 1807 A. Young Agric. Essex (1813) I. 107, 3 thill saddles, breechins, cruppers, &c. 1859 Hughes Scour. White Horse v, Varmer Mifflin's mare..won a new Cart-saddle and thill-tugs. Ibid. vi, The great horses in their thill harness. 1877 Knight Dict. Mech., Thill-coupling, a device for fastening the shafts to the fore-axle. Ibid., Thill-jack, a tool for attaching the thills of a carriage to the clips of the axle. Ibid., Thill-tug, a leathern loop depending from the harness saddle to hold the shaft of a carriage. |
▪ II. thill2
(θɪl)
[A local term of unknown origin; cf. till n., boulder-clay.]
The thin stratum of fire-clay, etc. usually underlying a coal-seam; underclay; the floor or bottom of a seam of coal.
| 1329–30 Durham Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 515 Quatour bayardours portantibus Thill et focale in abbathiam per x septimanas, xxiij s. vj d. 1454–5 Ibid. 634 Operanti circa le ryddyng ac adquisicione de le Thill pro eodem furno. 1500–1 Ibid. 657 Pro iiijor plaustr. de lez thillstone, xvj d. 1708 J. C. Compl. Collier (1845) 39 Sometimes a Pit may happen to have a Hitch or Dipping of the Thill or Bottom of the Way. 1851 Greenwell Coal-trade Terms Northumb. & Durh. 54 Thill, the floor of a seam of coal. 1867 W. W. Smyth Coal 25 The floor, thill, or seat.., of the coal is an underclay. 1878 G. A. Lebour Geol. Northumberland & Durh. (1886) iii. 12 There is a strict analogy between these peat-marls and clays and the ‘thills’ or ‘underclays’ of many coals. 1881 Borings & Sinkings II. 4 (E.D.D.) Grey thill with water. 1887 Woodward Geol. Eng. & Wales (ed. 2) 179 The Underclay is known as ‘Spavin’ in Yorkshire; as ‘Thill’ in Durham; as ‘Warrant’ or ‘Seat-earth’ in Lancashire; and as ‘Bottomstone’ or ‘Pouncin’ in South Wales. 1894 Heslop Northumb. Gloss. s.v., The underlayer of a coal seam frequently consists of a thin bed of fireclay; hence thin strata of that material are called thill, irrespective of their position with regard to a seam of coal. |