one of two poles, each with a support for the foot at some distance above the bottom end, enabling the wearer to walk with his or her feet above the ground.
one of several posts supporting a structure built above the surface of land or water.
Ceramics. a three-armed support for an object being fired.
any of several white-and-black wading birds, especially Cladorhynchus leucocephalus and Himantopus himantopus, having long, bright pink legs and a long, slender black bill.
BritishDialect.
a plow handle.
a crutch.
verb (used with object)
to raise on or as if on stilts.
Origin of stilt
1275–1325;Middle Englishstilte; cognate with Low Germanstilte pole, GermanStelze
early 14c., "a crutch," from Proto-Germanic *steltijon (cf. Middle Low German, Middle Dutch stelte "stilt," Old High German stelza "plow handle, crutch"), 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. Stilted in the figurative sense of "pompous, stuffy" is first recorded 1820.
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