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noun

Stilt n.

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."

A crutch; also, the handle of a plow. (Prov. Eng.)

(Zool.) 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 (Himantopus candidus) is usually white, except the wings and interscapulars, which are greenish black. The white-headed stilt (Himantopus leucocephalus) and the banded stilt (Cladorhynchus pectoralis) are found in Australia.

Stilt plover (Zool.), the stilt.

Stilt sandpiper (Zool.), an American sandpiper (Micropalama himantopus) having long legs. The bill is somewhat expanded at the tip.

verb

Stilt v. t. (past & past part. stilted; pres. part. stilting) To raise on stilts, or as if on stilts.

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Etymology of 'Stilt'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Stilt" Quotes from Famous Books

... meal; And instantly on broad-webbed feet, And stilt-like legs, and flapping wings, The feathered bipeds rushed to greet, With snaps and cluckings of delight, The joyful, ever-welcome sight Of supper at the approach ...

— Poems • John L. Stoddard

... credulity of the beholder: they were legs in caricature; and had we seen such proportions on a Chinese or Japan screen we should have made large allowances for the fancy of the draughtsman. These birds are of the plover family, and might with propriety be called the stilt plovers. Brisson, under that idea, gives them the apposite name of l'echasse. My specimen, when drawn and stuffed with pepper, weighed only four ounces and a quarter, though the naked part of the thigh measured three inches ...

— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... flap of his wings; or when, standing now on one foot, now on the other, he looks so solemnly at things, that one would think he was devoutly meditating over something or other; or, again, when, on his long stilt-like legs, he gravely strides over the meadows. With great attention we listened as children to the strange tales and songs which related to this sacred bird, as our mother told them to us and then added with solemn ...

— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... (recruits) I had been warned early to beware the "sympathy dodge." But experience is the only real teacher. One afternoon I bestraddled a crazy, stilt-legged Jamaican horse to go out into the bush beyond the Panama line to fetch and deliver a citizen of that sovereign republic who was wanted on the Zone for horse-stealing. At the town of Sabanas, where those Panamanians who have bagged the most loot since American occupation have their ...

— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck

... air, light, and soil. In the effort to spread their roots, some of the weaker sort, unable to find a footing, climb a powerful neighbor, and let their roots dangle in the air; while many a full-grown tree has been lifted up, as it were, in the strife, and now stands on the ends of its stilt-like roots, so that a man may walk upright between the roots and ...

— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

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