tiller

Meanings

Noun

• A person who tills; a farmer.
• A machine that mechanically tills the soil.
• A young tree.
• A shoot of a plant which springs from the root or bottom of the original stalk; a sapling; a sucker.
• The stock; a beam on a crossbow carved to fit the arrow, or the point of balance in a longbow.
• A bar of iron or wood connected with the rudderhead and leadline, usually forward, in which the rudder is moved as desired by the tiller (FM 55-501).
• The handle of the rudder which the helmsman holds to steer the boat, a piece of wood or metal extending forward from the rudder over or through the transom. Generally attached at the top of the rudder.
• A steering wheel, usually mounted on the lower portion of the captain's control column, which is used to steer the aircraft's nosewheel or tailwheel to provide steering during taxi.
• A handle; a stalk.
• The rear-wheel steering control, aboard a tiller truck.
• A small drawer; a till.

Verb

• To produce new shoots from the root or from around the bottom of the original stalk; stool.

Related

Similar words

• cultivator

Origin

• From Middle English tilier; equivalent to till + -er.
• From Middle English telȝre, telgra, from Old English telgor, telgra, telgre (also telga, telge (whence tillow)), from Proto-Germanic *telgô, *telgǭ, *telguz, from Proto-Indo-European *delgʰ- ("to split, divide, cut, carve"). Cognate with Dutch telg ("descendant, scion, offshoot, shoot"), Dutch Low Saxon telge ("twig, branch"), German Zelge ("twig, branch, bough"), Swedish telning ("branch, scion, sapling"), Icelandic tág ("willow-twig").
• From Middle English teler, from Anglo-Norman telier ("beam used in weaving"), from Medieval Latin telarium, from Latin tēla ("web").