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stilt
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
stilt
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ An indoor ladder grew stilts, turned into stairs.
▪ Each Kirikiri family has several houses standing on wooden stilts made out of tree bark and palm thatch.
▪ For no reason at all his thoughts turned to the girl who lived in the house on stilts.
▪ It was an interstate highway, up on stilts, that flew over the houses and through the burning air.
▪ The actors sport clown make-up and often progress on stilts.
▪ They learned how to walk on stilts, ride a unicycle and juggle.
▪ We glide past islands with huts on stilts and waving people.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Stilt

Stilt \Stilt\, n. [OE. stilte; akin to Dan. stylte, Sw. stylta, LG. & D. stelt, OHG. stelza, G. stelze, and perh. to E. stout.]

  1. A pole, or piece of wood, constructed with a step or loop to raise the foot above the ground in walking. It is sometimes lashed to the leg, and sometimes prolonged upward so as to be steadied by the hand or arm.

    Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked.
    --Landor.

  2. A crutch; also, the handle of a plow. [Prov. Eng.]
    --Halliwell.

  3. (Zo["o]l.) Any species of limicoline birds belonging to Himantopus and allied genera, in which the legs are remarkably long and slender. Called also longshanks, stiltbird, stilt plover, and lawyer.

    Note: The American species ( Himantopus Mexicanus) is well known. The European and Asiatic stilt ( H. candidus) is usually white, except the wings and interscapulars, which are greenish black. The white-headed stilt ( H. leucocephalus) and the banded stilt ( Cladorhynchus pectoralis) are found in Australia.

    Stilt plover (Zo["o]l.), the stilt.

    Stilt sandpiper (Zo["o]l.), an American sandpiper ( Micropalama himantopus) having long legs. The bill is somewhat expanded at the tip.

Stilt

Stilt \Stilt\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Stilted; p. pr. & vb. n. Stilting.] To raise on stilts, or as if on stilts.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
stilt

early 14c., "a crutch," a common Germanic word (cognates: Danish stylte, Swedish stylta, Middle Low German, Middle Dutch stelte "stilt," Old High German stelza "plow handle, crutch"), though the exact relationship of them all is unclear, from Proto-Germanic *steltijon, from PIE root *stel- "to put, stand" (see stall (n.1)). Application to "wooden poles for walking across marshy ground, etc." is from mid-15c. Meaning "one of the posts on which a building is raised from the ground" is first attested 1690s. As a type of bird with long legs, from 1831. Stilted in the figurative sense of "pompous, stuffy" is first recorded 1820.

Wiktionary
stilt

n. 1 Either of two poles with footrests that allow someone to stand or walk above the ground; used mostly by entertainers. 2 A tall pillar or post used to support some structure; often above water. 3 Any of various wading birds of the genera ''Himantopus'' and ''Cladorhynchus'', related to the avocet, that have extremely long legs and long thin bills. 4 A crutch. 5 The handle of a plough. vb. to raise on stilts, or as if on stilts

WordNet
stilt
  1. n. a column of wood or steel or concrete that is driven into the ground to provide support for a structure [syn: pile, spile, piling]

  2. one of two stout poles with foot rests in the middle; used for walking high above the ground; "he was so tall I thought he was on stilts"

  3. long-legged three-toed wading bird of brackish marshes of Australia [syn: Australian stilt]

  4. long-legged three-toed black-and-white wading bird of inland ponds and marshes or brackish lagoons [syn: stiltbird, longlegs, long-legs, stilt plover, Himantopus stilt]

Wikipedia
Stilt

Stilt is a common name for several species of birds in the family Recurvirostridae, which also includes those known as avocets. They are found in brackish or saline wetlands in warm or hot climates.

They have extremely long legs, hence the group name, and long thin bills. Stilts typically feed on aquatic insects and other small creatures and nest on the ground surface in loose colonies.

Most sources recognize 6 species in 2 genera, although the white-backed and Hawaiian stilts are occasionally considered subspecies of the black-necked stilt. The generic name "Himantopus" comes from the Greek meaning "strap-leg".

Stilt (disambiguation)

Stilts may refer to:

  • Stilts, leg-attached poles serving to increase one's height
  • Stilts (architecture), poles, posts or pillars used to allow a structure or building to stand at a distance above the ground.
  • Stilt, a wading bird of the genus Himantopus or Cladorhynchus in the family Recurvirostridae
  • Stilt (journal), the ornithological journal of the Australasian Wader Studies Group
  • "Stilts" (Malcolm in the Middle), the 20th episode of the 6th season of Malcolm in the Middle
  • Stilts of Stilt house or pilotis
Stilt (journal)

The Stilt is the journal of the Australasian Wader Studies Group (AWSG), a special interest group of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union, also known as Birds Australia. It was first issued in 1981.

Stilt (company)

Stilt is a lending platform for expatriates based in the United States of America. The company furbishes loans to borrowers of foreign origin, residing in the U.S.

Usage examples of "stilt".

A hundred metres ahead lay the twentieth century, the autoroute junction raised on stilts, sloping down into its cloverleaf pattern that allowed the eye, intent upon its tight curve, no leisure for the driver to stare at the countryside.

Other Norman-French poems were written in England on the rebellion, on the conquest of Ireland, on the life of the martyred Thomas--poems which threw off the formal rules of the stilted Latin fashion, and embodied the tales of eye-witnesses with their graphic brief descriptions.

Lady Merel asked in the stilted and insulting manner she always assumed with Barak.

I had expected Scorf to sit bolt upright behind the wheel of the dark blue unmarked Cougar and fumble it along at a stilted thirty-five.

A regular speech must be in stilted, archaic talk, delivered in a high, unmodulated voice, in rapid sentences broken by short silences.

The couple had been with her for almost six years, and yet Karl was a mask--- a talking, breathing, untranslated hieroglyph running her errands on stilted legs.

At the turning of the katun, the time comes for fasting and drinking balche, for cleansing the sacred books, for dancing on stilts and burning incense.

Yes, Tim and his exuberant excitement over worms, hooks, and bluegill had gone a long way toward lightening his mood, but being stuck having another stilted dinner with his family plunged him right back into the depths without any problem.

Ancient trunks and knotted vines, giant ferns and stippled foliage, the languid monotone of botanical patterning interrupted, at precisely the proper moment, by a sudden caesura in the greenery, bright orchids dazzling as summer clouds, flavored cups of epiphytic ice protruding from their beds of root growth thick as pubic hair up in the crotches of the stilted mangrove trees, or the swoop of incandescent plumage as a blue-throated flycatcher sailed out into the open river space and vanished, the eye barely registering its passage.

With a cakey dryness about the lips, the sweetness of cotton candy filming her teeth, numb to cacophony and in her element, little Linds saw out of the corner of her eye a switched-on filament of stilted brilliance in the no-color sky, heard mobbed shrieks out of tenor with the cries of thrillseekers.

The corncrib was like a little house, raised well above the ground on stilts, with a narrow ladder leading up to it.

Stilted verse, deathlessly chiseled, eulogized the departees -- vanity plates in suburbia for the lifeless.

Getting to me, the essayist mentioned the fact that my style was clumsy, my dialog stilted, my characterization non-existent, but that there was no question that my books were -turners.

He observed the trio of riders herding a small band of cattle toward the feedlots, his attitude stilted and cool.

The old neighborhoods of Shanghai, Feedless or with overhead Feeds kludged in on bamboo stilts, seemed frighteningly inert, like an opium addict squatting in the middle of a frenetic downtown street, blowing a reed of sweet smoke out between his teeth, staring into some ancient dream that all the bustling pedestrians had banished to unfrequented parts of their minds.