tilt
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "tilt", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "tilt" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "tilt" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
tilt is aEnglishverb. It means: To slope or incline (something); to slant. Pronounced /tɪlt/. Often confused with TL and TT.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | tilt |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /tɪlt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #11,988 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for tilt is 4 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /tɪlt/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,988 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for tilt, with forms such as "itlt", "tillt", and "tiltt". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "TL", "TT", "tip", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English tilte, from Old English *tyltan, *tieltan (“to be unsteady”), related to the adjective tealt (“unsteady”), from Proto-West Germanic *talt, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *del-, *dul- (“to shake, hesitate”), see also Dutch touteren (… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is tilt, spelled T-I-L-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To slope or incline (something); to slant.
- 2To be at an angle.
- 3To charge (at someone) with a lance.
- 4To point or thrust a weapon at.
- 5To point or thrust (a weapon).
- 6To forge (something) with a tilt hammer.
- 7To intentionally let the ball fall down to the drain by disabling flippers and most targets, done as a punishment to the player when the machine is nudged too violently or frequently.
- 8To enter a state of frustration and worsened performance resulting from a series of losses.
- 9To modify one's approach.
Etymology
From Middle English tilte, from Old English *tyltan, *tieltan (“to be unsteady”), related to the adjective tealt (“unsteady”), from Proto-West Germanic *talt, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *del-, *dul- (“to shake, hesitate”), see also Dutch touteren (“to tremble”), North Frisian talt, tolt (“unstable, shaky”). Cognate with Icelandic tölt (“an ambling pace”). The nominal sense of "a joust" appears around 1510, presumably derived from the barrier which separated the combatants, which suggests connection with tilt "covering". The modern transitive meaning is from 1590; the intransitive use appears 1620. The sense of gaming frustration is said to originate with pinball.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: itlt,tillt,tiltt,titl,tlit,ttilt
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for tilt
Misspelling Variants of "tilt"
Frequency rank: #11,988 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: