stilt

[stilt]

noun

1. one of two poles, each with a support for the foot at some distance above the bottom end, enabling the wearer to walk with their feet above the ground.

2. one of several posts supporting a structure built above the surface of land or water.

3. Ceramics.,  a three-armed support for an object being fired.

4. any of several wading birds with very long pink legs and a long, slender bill, including the black-and-white Cladorhynchus leucocephalus and Himantopus himantopus.

5. British Dialect.

   1. a plow handle.

   2. a crutch.

verb (used with object)

1. to raise on or as if on stilts.

stilt

/ stɪlt /

noun

1. either of a pair of two long poles with footrests on which a person stands and walks, as used by circus clowns

2. a long post or column that is used with others to support a building above ground level

3. any of several shore birds of the genera Himantopus and Cladorhynchus, similar to the avocets but having a straight bill

verb

1. (tr) to raise or place on or as if on stilts

Other Word Forms

• stiltlike adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of stilt¹

First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English stilte; cognate with Low German stilte “pole,” German Stelze

Word History and Origins

Origin of stilt¹

C14 (in the sense: crutch, handle of a plough): related to Low German stilte pole, Norwegian stilta

Example Sentences

Every family—including Sothea and his wife, who took in six children—got its own wooden house, built Cambodian-style on stilts on a leafy riverside property Johnson purchased in Phnom Penh.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The trail eventually took me into the waterways of Makoko, one of the city's poorest districts, where wooden houses balanced on stilts rise on the edge of Lagos Lagoon.

Read more on BBC

"That is rubbish on stilts," he said, adding: "We can't have our cake and eat it. We will have to choose."

Read more on BBC

“I went to them and said, ‘Hey, can we have one of those stilt walkers?’” says Slash, referring to the larger-than-life lurkers who haunt guests during the festivities.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

As Times assistant sports editor Houston Mitchell wrote, “Might as well bring in the stilts guy from the Savannah Bananas to pitch.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• angular 
• gangly 
• gaunt 
• lanky 
• rangy 
• sinewy 
• skinny 
• slender 
• slim 
• sparse 
• svelte 
• wiry