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Tiller   /tˈɪlər/   Listen
Tiller

verb
(past & past part. tillered; pres. part. tillering)  (Sometimes written tillow)
1.
Grow shoots in the form of stools or tillers.  Synonym: stool.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tiller" Quotes from Famous Books



... vine its fruit deny, Although the olive yield no oil, The withering fig-trees droop and die, The fields elude the tiller's toil. The empty stall no herd afford, And perish all the bleating race, Yet will I triumph in the Lord— The ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... by supper time, too drunk to take the sail off her, so we drove on down Channel, trusting to the goodness of the gear. There would have been a pretty smash-up if we had had to alter our course hurriedly. As it was we were jumping like a young colt, in a welter of foam, with two men at the tiller, besides a gang on the tackles. I never knew any ship to bound about so wildly. I passed the evening after supper on deck, enjoying the splendour of that savage leaping rush down Channel, yet just a little nervous at the sight ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... indeed, a few children huzzah and wave their hands to the express; but for the most part, it is an interruption too brief and isolated to attract much notice; the sheep do not cease from browsing; a girl sits balanced on the projecting tiller of a canal boat, so precariously that it seems as if a fly or the splash of a leaping fish would be enough to overthrow the dainty equilibrium, and yet all these hundreds of tons of coal and wood and iron ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... I like it better than life at Putnam Hall," smiled Sam Rover, as he threw over the tiller of the little yacht. "I'm quite anxious to meet Captain Putnam and Fred, Frank, and ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield

... boat, he sailed over to Tenean, where plenty of clams were to be had, and a bucket full was soon procured. Like a prudent fisherman, he made all his arrangements for the next day. First he repaired the worn-out sail, then made a new sprit, and refitted the tiller to the rudder head. When everything was in ship-shape order about the boat, he took out his perch lines, ganged on a new hook, and rigged an extra sinker for ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams

... poet, no demagogue, had ever so interested the masses. Musicians of academic training held aloof. What had they in common with this charlatan who treated the abominable teachings of Walt Whitman symphonically? He could not be a respectable man, even if he were a sane. And then the unlettered tiller of the soil, drunken mechanic and gutter drab all loved his music. What kind of music was it thus to be understood ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... the agitation of the Psalmist's soul, but is soon followed by the recurrence of 'the horrible storm' that 'begins afresh.' A tiny island of blue appears in his sky, and then the pale, ugly, grey rack drives across it once more. But the guiding self keeps the hand firm on the tiller, notwithstanding the wash of the water and the rolling of the ship, and the dominant will conquers at last, and at the third time the yielding soul obeys and is quiet, because the Psalmist's will resolved that it should be quiet, and it hopes in God because He, by a dead lift of effort, lifts ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... we answered; and with Harris at the sculls and I at the tiller-lines, and Montmorency, unhappy and deeply suspicious, in the prow, out we shot on to the waters which, for a fortnight, were to ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... at the tiller guiding the steering gear to fix the vessel in its course, on the smooth, ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... the hypocrite I am, I only smiled indulgently at him, as if, for women, marrying was mere reposing on eider-down cushions, with the tiller ropes in their hands, while men did the rowing. I was not going to admit, Tabby, that the most of the girls we know never worked harder in their lives than during that indefinite and mysterious period known as "making up their minds." ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... visiting pilots sit, to spin yarns and 'look at the river;' bright, fanciful 'cuspadores' instead of a broad wooden box filled with sawdust; nice new oil-cloth on the floor; a hospitable big stove for winter; a wheel as high as my head, costly with inlaid work; a wire tiller-rope; bright brass knobs for the bells; and a tidy, white-aproned, black 'texas-tender,' to bring up tarts and ices and coffee during mid-watch, day and night. Now this was 'something like,' and so I began to take heart once more to believe that piloting was a romantic sort of occupation after all. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Tom ordered his companions, as he pushed out a pair of oars. "Nicolas, you're also good with a pair of oars. Mr. Renshaw, you take the tiller. Inform me instantly when you see the first gleam of the 'Morton's' search-light. Evarts ought to have caught the scoundrels this time. Evidently he's been cruising softly without showing ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock

... proudly, "and who wass it that first put a gun into his hand? and who wass it skinned the ferry first seal that he shot in Loch Scridain? and who wass it told him the name of every spar and sheet of the Umpire, and showed him how to hold a tiller? And if there is any man knows more as me about the birds and the deer, that is right—let him go out; but it is the first day I hef not been out with Sir Keith since ever I wass at Castle Dare; and now it is time that I am going away; for I ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... enough play of limb and change of position caused by the working of the ship, while he soon learns by practice to steer by the action of any part of his body from head to feet being in contact with the tiller, that delicate and true sensorium of a boat to which ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... a river of still more sylvan gentleness than the Avon. The other passengers seemed to have no eyes for the picturesque—perhaps they had seen the scenery till they were tired of it; and some of them were more pleasantly engaged than gaping and gazing at rocks and trees. Grouped at the tiller-chains were four or five people, very happily employed in looking at each other—a lady and gentleman, in particular, seemed to find a peculiar pleasure in the occupation; and were instructing each other in the art and mystery of tying the sailor's knot. Time after time the cord ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... his head, took the tiller from the steersman, and bade him go below and fill himself. Will Cary went down, and returned in five minutes, with a plate of bread and beef, and a great jack of ale, coaxed them down Amyas' throat, as a nurse does with a child, and then ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... within had so often been committed in sea and tempest. Upon the strand, and close opposite to the small gate which now stood ajar, lay one of her boats, the crew of which had abandoned her with the exception only of a single individual, apparently her cockswain, who, with the tiller under his arm, lay half extended in the stern-sheets, his naked chest exposed, and his tarpaulin hat shielding his eyes from the sun while he indulged in profound repose. These were the only objects that told of human life. Everywhere beyond the eye rested on the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... and told him briefly how I was situated. 'Old man Providence has got his hand on the tiller of this craft or I'm a grampus! Say! do you know I was wishin' and waitin' for you? Yes, sir; no more than yesterday, says I to myself, Chuck Burrows, says I, you are gettin' long too fur to the wind'ard ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady

... That is enough. Keep her jib just full and no more till we have stowed all away here." When the chain was stowed below, and the anchor securely fastened, Tripper went aft and hauled in the main-sheet. "Up with the foresail, Tom. That is it. You keep the tiller, Jack." The two men now proceeded to coil down all the ropes, and get everything ship-shape and tidy. By the time they had finished, Harwich was fairly behind them, and they were laying their course a point or two outside the Naze, throwing the spray high each time the ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty

... clasp; then Neeland descended and entered the boat; the Inspector of Police took the tiller; the policemen bent to the oars, and the boat shot away through a mist which was turning to ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... voyage Bertha and Amy Sinclair had become quite adroit helmswomen, and one or other was constantly at the tiller when the wind was light. Bertha had learned the names of all the crew, and often went forward to ask questions of the men tending the head sails, becoming a prime favourite with all hands. On arriving at Southampton the rest of the party went up at once to town, while Frank remained ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty

... the tiller, down the pilot rolled. Thrice round the billow whirled her, as she lay, Then whelmed below. Strewn here and there behold Arms, planks, lone swimmers in the surges grey, And treasures snatched from Trojan homes away. Now fail the ships wherein Achates ride And Abas; old Aletes' bark gives way, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... the darkness came another darkness, and gradually loomed forth the heaviness of a barge. Noiselessly it glided down the stream, very slowly; at the end of it a boy stood at the tiller, steering; and it passed beneath them and beyond, till it lost itself in the night, ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham

... sail flapped wildly in the breeze, which was now growing stronger, and the craft began to drift. Catching up the centre-board, lying near, the boy drove it down into its narrow groove with a resounding thud. Seizing the sheet-line with one hand, and squatting well astern he grasped the tiller with the other. Nobly the boat obeyed her little determined commander. The sail filled, she listed to the left and darted forward, bearing bravely up the wind. Straight ahead the boy could see the distressed boat sinking ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody

... Thorvald a clout on the ear, so that he fell from his place at the helm in a swoon; and Cormac's ship hove to, when she lost her rudder. Steingerd had been sitting beside Thorvald; she laid hold of the tiller, and ran Cormac down. When he saw what she ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown

... these facts, because an idea has gone abroad that any man with Mr. Rarey's straps can manage any horse. It would be just as sensible to assert that any boy could learn to steer a yacht by taking the tiller for an hour under the care ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... unostentatiously behind one of the tiers of lighters. To my untrained eyes it was incredible that in the labyrinth of craft, amid the darkness, we should be able to pick our way. Yet deftly, unerringly, the inspector moved the tiller, while two constables kept keen eyes on the ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot

... Planes, Standing Ship Rigging Bridges, Ferries, Stays or Guys on Derricks & Cranes Tiller Ropes, Sash Cords of Copper and Iron, Lightning Conductors of Copper. Special attention given to hoisting rope of all kinds for Mines and Elevators. Apply for circular, giving price and other information. Send for pamphlet on Transmission ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... "The tiller of the soil is going forth again to his work. Do not turn your eyes from him, and let a feeling of impatience stir in your heart because he is not a soldier rushing to battle, or a brilliant orator holding thousands enchained ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur

... the tiller; but the slight cockle-shell merely swung round and drifted broadside on. O, if we had but left a single scull in ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... board apprised Spike fully of the state in which he was now placed, and by a desperate effort, he clutched the tiller, and got the yawl again before the wind. This could not last, however. Little by little, his hold relaxed, until his hand relinquished its grasp altogether, and the wounded man sunk into the bottom of the stern-sheets, unable to raise even ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... in charge.) And we all know how apt we are to meddle, and generally unwisely, with the proper labours of others. Nothing, for instance, is more annoying and dangerous even than to put forth your hand by way of helping a driver in managing his horses, or to interfere with the tiller of a boat at which a perfectly competent man is already seated. We have known the saying just quoted scores of times suffice to stop the unwise and gratuitous intermeddling of such as were disposed to interfere ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, January 1876 • Various

... principal, avec sa double porte mystrieuse; puis, quelques pas plus loin, devant le cabinet de M. Viot.... L je m'arrtai subitement.... joie, dlices! les clefs, les terribles clefs pendaient la serrure, et le vent les faisait doucement frtiller. Je les regardai avec une sorte de terreur religieuse; puis, tout coup, une ide de vengeance me vint. Tratreusement, d'une main sacrilge, je retirai le trousseau de la serrure, et, le cachant sous ma redingote, je descendis l'escalier ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet

... the breakers, Mr. Effingham," Captain Truck continued, after standing up a while and examining the shore, "I will pull into the channel, and land in yonder bay. If you feel disposed to follow, you may do so by giving the tiller to Mr. Blunt, on receiving a signal to that effect from me. Be steady, gentlemen, at your oars, and look well to the arms on landing, for we are in a knavish part of the world. Should any of the monkeys or ouran-outangs claim kindred ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... hoist with a will. In an incredibly short time he had the sail hoisted all the way up, while Darrin, stern and whitefaced, crouched and braced himself by the tiller, gripping the sheet ...
— Dave Darrin's Third Year at Annapolis - Leaders of the Second Class Midshipmen • H. Irving Hancock

... With the tiller under one arm and a pipe in his mouth, long empty, sat Martin, thinking about Joan. Hearing voices, Tootles looked up from a book that she was trying to read. She had been lying in the hammock on the ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... Lily," replied Dan, as he put the Isabel about, and headed towards the small island, about half a mile from the shore. "Take the helm, Cyd," continued he, as he left his post at the tiller, and rushed into ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic

... ship. When all were seated in the admiral's steam launch, the admiral descended the accommodation ladder and himself picked up the tiller ropes. ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis

... in the stern beside her father, and very soon the tiller was in her hand and she was shaping the boat's course toward the forts. ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis

... more intelligent of his officers were not long in perceiving that there was a vicious and variable wind in their superior's moral atmosphere, under which his canvas strained or flapped unaccountably. They imagined, to pursue their own figure, that his hand did not grasp the reason tiller with its customary grip, and that his bark was left more or less to the conflicting guidance of other influences. Many a time since his departure from England had the old sailor been stung with remorse at the unwritten tenor of his present commission. He would frequently try ...
— Stories by English Authors: The Sea • Various

... we should go, and no one seemed to have any knowledge how to act. At last we asked, "Who is in charge of this boat?" but there was no reply. We then agreed by general consent that the stoker who stood in the stern with the tiller should act as captain, and from that time he directed the course, shouting to other boats and keeping in touch with them. Not that there was anywhere to go or anything we could do. Our plan of action was simple: to keep all the boats together as far as possible ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley

... easily, as the oars were got out, and headed directly away from the ship. The crew seemed to me to be mostly stewards or cooks in white jackets, two to an oar, with a stoker at the tiller. There was a certain amount of shouting from one end of the boat to the other, and discussion as to which way we should go, but finally it was decided to elect the stoker, who was steering, as captain, and ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... back, now," said the sailor. "Going to have a big blow afore night." And he threw over the tiller and gave the necessary commands to change ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield

... been sitting amidships, but she came aft at once, and nestled by him as he sat holding the tiller. She put her face against his knee, like a tired child, and shut her eyes; her hair was lifted by the summer breeze; a scent of roses came from her; the mere contact of anything so fresh and pure was a delight. He put his arm around her, and all the first ardor of passion came back to him ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... and he flung out the dory's anchor and followed. The sail went up with a pleasant clucking of the tackle, and the light wind filled it. Libby made the sheet fast, and, sitting down in the stern on the other side, took the tiller and headed the boat toward the town that shimmered in the distance. The water hissed at the bow, and seethed and sparkled from the stern; the land breeze that bent their sail blew cool upon her cheek and freshened it with a tinge ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... of attack transcended those of the mere devourer of leaf-tissue, as radically as an inventor of most intricate instruments differs from the plodding tiller of the soil. In the center of one leaf, less disfigured than some of its fellows, I perceived four tiny ivory spheres, a dozen of which might rest comfortably within the length of an inch. To my eye they looked quite smooth, although a steady oblique gaze revealed hints of concentric lines. Before ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... jogging his elbow. He woke up and opened his eyes. His hatchet, worn out, lay beside him. The big tree was gone, and in its place there stood a little ship, ready and finished. The Fool did not stop to think. He jumped into the ship, seized the tiller, and sat down. Instantly the ship leapt up into the air, and sailed away over ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome

... noting his varying color, and the incessant restlessness of his hands. "I wouldn't change nervous systems with that man for the largest fortune that could be offered me," thought the doctor as he took the boat's tiller, and gave the oarsmen their order to push off from ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... at the bottom of that green meadow, deep in grass and with the waving trees to hide us from observation, though there was not a house within a mile, nor, saving an occasional barge with a sleepy man hanging over the tiller, a boat to be seen, and as I watched the actions of my companions, I, for the first time in my life, felt the desire to imitate them come ...
— Brownsmith's Boy - A Romance in a Garden • George Manville Fenn

... a sight, I admit," went on Jennie. "Everything in the shell, girls? Now! up with it. Come on, little Trix," she added to the coxswain. "Don't get your tiller-lines snarled, and bring your 'nose-warmer'"—by which inelegant term she referred to the megaphone which, when they were really trying for speed was strapped ...
— Ruth Fielding At College - or The Missing Examination Papers • Alice B. Emerson

... boy, out of the way," said some one; a hand led me aft to the stern sheets, and there was Marah at the tiller. "Get sail on her," he said in a ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield

... do turn out very oddly; don't they?' said Mark with a sly glance of complacency, and his hands in his pockets. 'But I know you'll hold the tiller till I get through; hang me if I know the soundings, or where I'm going; and you have ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... I said 'Starboard,' you would move the tiller to the right side.—Now, boys, which of you can tell me the difference between a tiller and ...
— The Nursery, June 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 6 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... hurried lowering of her boat, with the cloudiness of the sky darkening the misty sea, united to conceal the bold manoeuvre of the cutter. She had almost gained full headway ere an oblique shot, directed by mere chance, struck her stern, tearing the upcurved head of the tiller in the hands of the cabin-boy, and killing him with the splinters. Running to the stump, the captain huzzaed, and steered the reeling ship on. Forced now to hoist back the boat ere giving chase, the stranger ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... I reckoned,' said the skipper, with just a nod of his head. He had taken the tiller and sent all the crew, saving four men rowing, forward whilst I examined the patients. 'Jock wouldn't be one to let out a groan if he knew there were women by to be scared by it. . . . Also, Doctor, if he's dying, I'd like to be handy by, if you understand. I got him ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... from the room before he should discover her. But she felt no fear of the man himself, and bracing her nerves, struck a light. It showed Gray Michael sitting up and evidently under the impression he was at sea. He grasped the bed-head as a tiller ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... coort, though. I'm o' Manuel's way o' thinkin'. About tin years back I was crew to a Sou' Boston market-boat. We was off Minot's Ledge wid a northeaster, butt first, atop of us, thicker'n burgoo. The ould man was dhrunk, his chin waggin' on the tiller, an' I sez to myself, 'If iver I stick my boat-huk into T-wharf again, I'll show the saints fwhat manner o' craft they saved me out av.' Now, I'm here, as ye can well see, an' the model of the dhirty ould Kathleen, that took me a month ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling

... charged. As at the present day agriculture in the Philippines does not yield 30 per cent. nett profit, it naturally follows that the money-lender at this rate has to attach the estate upon which he has made loans, and finally becomes owner of it. In the meantime, the tiller who has directed the labour of converting a tract of land into a plantation, simply gets a living out of it. Some few were able to disencumber their property by paying, year by year, not only the whole of the nett returns from the plantation, but also the profits on small traffic ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman

... progress, the benefactor of his workmen. There would be Gabriel—the good priest, as they say!—the apostle of the primitive gospel, the representative of the democracy of the church, of the poor country curate as opposed to the rich bishop, the tiller of the vine as opposed to him who sits in the shade of it; the propagator of all the ideas of fraternity, emancipation, progress—to use their own jargon—and that, not in the name of revolutionary ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... accustomed to Desiree's face that he thought of it even while at sea, when throwing out his nets, in storms or in calms, on moonlit or dark evenings. He thought of her while holding the tiller in the stern of his boat, while his four companions were slumbering with their heads on their arms. He always saw her, smiling, pouring out the yellow brandy with a peculiar shoulder movement and then exclaiming as she turned away: "There, now; are ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... up on deck again into the moonlight. A white, silent world of waters is about us as we join the crew going aft to the poop. The awning has been partly folded back, and we see the Skipper resting his book on the tiller-gear, while the Steward stands by with a lantern. I look curiously into the faces I know so well, seeking, in the presence of death, a little more knowledge of life. I look at the Skipper, with his white hair and fierce moustache ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee

... lead, and thirty-two pounds of gunpowder by way of ammunition.(516) The mention of "teleres" and the small amount of ammunition favours the assumption that the instruments were rather hand-guns than heavy pieces, as has been supposed.(517) A "telere" or tiller was a common name for the stock of a cross-bow,(518) and the earliest hand-guns or fire-arms known consisted of a simple tube of metal with touch-hole, fixed on a straight stick or shaft, which when used was passed under the arm so as to afford a ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... are, right over it. I shall be blowing against you; you will be sailing against me; and all will be just as we want it. The captain won't get on so fast as he would like, but he will get on, and so shall we. I'm just going to put you on board. Do you see in front of the tiller—that thing the man is working, now to one side, now to the other—a round thing like the top of ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald

... the steady hand upon the tiller, shot into the cove. The girl secured the boat and ran lightly over the dunes to the seaward side; then she lay down among the ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... like Miller, That skimmer of the seas— A wheel rigged on a tiller, [See Notes (5)] And a fresh gunwale breeze, A crew of friends well chosen, And all a-taunto, I Would sail for regions frozen— I'd rather freeze ...
— Poems • George P. Morris

... passed much beyond the meridian. Burt, from his intimate knowledge of the channel, acted as pilot, and was jubilant over the fact that Amy consented to take an oar with him and receive a lesson in rowing. Mrs. Marvin held the tiller-ropes, and the doctor was to use a pair of oars when requested to do so. Webb and Leonard took charge of the larger boat, of which Johnnie, as hostess, was captain, and a jolly group of little boys and girls made the echoes ring, while ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe

... the stern with his hat off, his legs stretched, out before him, and a tiller rope in each hand, the image of indolent ease. "Yes, this is perfect," he added; ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... their crops were in now. And everything might have been well with them—they had all they needed. Isak had started on new ground again, before the frost came, to make a bigger cornfield; Isak was a tiller of the soil. But in November Inger said one day, "She would have been six months old now, ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... down the beach; and the man who was ashore gave him an arm on board, and then shoved off and leaped into the bows himself. Northmour took the tiller; the boat rose to the waves, and the oars between the tholepins sounded crisp and measured in the ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... is usually taken as a type of sturdy Philistinism in artistic matters. It was a most exceptional good fortune that gave C.B. Hawley a father who added to the dignity of being a tiller of the soil the refinements of great musical taste and skill. His house at Brookfield, Conn., contained not only a grand piano, but a pipe organ as well; and Hawley's mother was blessed with a beautiful ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes

... red brick to the mason's hand, The brown earth to the tiller's, The shoe in yours shall wealth command, Like fairy Cinderella's! As they who shunned the household maid Beheld the crown upon her, So all shall see your toil repaid With hearth ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... realize more and more difficulty in finding places, so that the so-called higher avenues are becoming crowded to an uncomfortable extent. The colored man will find it not a whit to his disgrace to be a tiller of the soil; when he is an educated tiller he will find that he can produce better crops, make more money, and rear his children usefully. If he keeps up his present lick, he will find that he has all teachers and no scholars, all preachers ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various

... of my readers will smile at the statement that a man in a boat on smooth water can pull himself across with the tiller rope! But it is a fact. If the jester had fastened the end of his rope to the stern of the boat and then, while standing in the bows, had given a series of violent jerks, the boat would have been propelled forward. This has often been put to a practical test, and it is said that a speed of ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney

... commanders, who are called upon to co-operate. These leaders, instead of sinking all differences in one common objective, work rather as if they were employed in a business competition. And why is this? Ask of the man in Pretoria with his hand on the tiller. Is not centralisation the cause of it all? Does not the centralisation of the guiding authority mean that all success is judged by personal results,—that the "brave" is selected for preferment who can claim to ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... high as the vessel's masthead: at this dreadful moment the swell left the cutter, and she struck upon a rock with such force that the rudder was nearly lifted out of the gudgeons: fortunately we had a brave man and a good seaman at the helm, for instantly recovering the tiller, by a blow from which he had been knocked down when the vessel struck, he obeyed my orders with such attention and alacrity that the sails were kept full; so that by her not losing way, she cleared the rock before the succeeding wave flowed from under her, and the next moment a flash ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King

... down, passed within a few yards of it. It was a ship's life-boat, half full of water; lying in the water, rolling slowly from side to side as the boat rocked in their wash, were five dead men. A sixth sat huddled at the tiller, staring over the quarter with unseeing ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... doubtful himself. He laid his hand on the tiller and was about to change his course when he made a ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump

... "And she again bare his brother Abel, And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... ship of the realm. The most troublesome persons in it are usually the least recognized for such, and the most active in its management; the best men mind their own business patiently, and are never thought of; the good helmsman never touches the tiller but in the last extremity; and the worst forms of misery are hidden, not only from every eye, but from every thought. On the deck, the aspect is of Cleopatra's galley—under hatches there is a slave hospital; while, finally (and this is the ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin

... dreaming cots to experience the hot air of the approaching fire. The pilot, being elevated on the hurricane deck, at the instant of perceiving the flames, put the head of the boat shoreward. She had scarcely got under good way in that direction, than the tiller ropes were burnt asunder. Two miles at least, from the land, the vessel took a sheer, and, borne upon by the current, made several revolutions, until she struck off across the river. A [sand] bar brought her ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... would take the sculls and I the tiller, and I would tell her (in French) all about our school adventures at Brossard's and Bonzig, and the Lafertes, and the Revolution of February; and in that way she picked up a lot of useful and idiomatic Parisian which considerably astonished ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... gaining rapidly on the schooner; I could see the brass glisten on the tiller as it banged about; and still no soul appeared upon her decks. I could not choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do what I chose ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the midst of an enlightened nation is quaint, unconsciously softened by the cultivation and refinement of institutions that lie far away. In such communities live poets with lyres attuned to drollery. Moved by the grandeurs of nature, the sunrise, the sunset, the storm among the mountains, the tiller of the gullied hill-side field is half dumb, but with those apt "few words which are seldom spent in vain," he charicatures his own sense of beauty, mingling rude metaphor with the language of ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read

... we picked up a breeze, and with the ebbing tide made good speed down the estuary. Shalah the Indian had the tiller, and I sat luxuriously in the bows, smoking my cob pipe, and wondering what the next week held in store for me. The night before I had had qualms about the whole business, but the air of morning has a trick of firing my ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... down the Straits before a stiff breeze and Henderson was busy with the tiller when she said to him: "Hart, I want you to ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... Volsung banners, and on went Sigmund before, And his sword was the flail of the tiller on the wheat of the wheat-thrashing floor, And his shield was rent from his arm, and his helm was sheared from his head: But who may draw nigh him to smite for the heap and the rampart of dead? White went his hair on the wind like the ragged drift of the cloud, And his dust-driven, blood-beaten ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris

... prepar'd The heav'nly fire; and first upon the plain The flames he kindled, and the dead consum'd, Who lay, promiscuous, by Achilles slain: The plain was dried, and stay'd the wat'ry flood. As when the breath of Boreas quickly dries In Autumn-time a newly-water'd field, The tiller's heart rejoicing: so was dried The spacious plain; then he, the dead consum'd, Against the river turn'd the fiery glare: Burnt were the willows, elms, and tamarisk shrubs, The lotus, and the reeds, and galingal, Which by the lovely river ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... the quays of people so completely that the tiny pair of sentries at the foot of a tall yellow building caught the eye from afar. Sera-phina crouched on a coil of rope under the bulwark; old Pedro, at the tiller, peered about from under his hand, and I, trying to expose myself to view as little as possible, helped him to look for the Lion. There she is. Yes! No! There she was. A crushing load fell off my chest. We had made her out together, old Pedro ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... day's time Thormod and I set sail, and once more I took the helm as we went out over our bar. And the quiver of the tiller in my hands and the long lift of the ship over the rollers seemed to put fresh life in me, and my gloom passed away as if it had ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler

... their waists braced tight, swords, mallets, and pole-axes in their hands. Their leader, Goodwin Hawtayne, stood upon the poop and talked with Sir Nigel, casting his eye up sometimes at the swelling sail, and then glancing back at the two seamen who held the tiller. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... would make their living by felling trees in the jungle, and permission being accorded, have done so ever since. They had two sons, one of whom remained a Baiga, while the other became a Gond and a tiller of the soil. The sons married their own two sisters who were afterwards born, and while the elder couple are the ancestors of the Baigas, from the younger are descended the Gonds and all the remainder of the human race. In another version of the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... them; but the Porpoise having only three double-reefed top sails set, scarcely came up to the wind. Lieutenant Fowler sprang upon deck, on hearing the noise; but supposing it to be occasioned by carrying away the tiller rope, a circumstance which had often occurred in the Investigator, and having no orders to give, I remained some minutes longer, conversing with the gentlemen in the gun room. On going up, I found the sails shaking in the wind, and the ship in the act of paying off; at the same ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... bind occasionally, the device was thought to be sufficient and was installed just in front of the frame. Connected to a system of cables, arms, and rods, possibly similar to the present cam-bar shifter, the shipper-fork carriage was moved from side to side by raising or lowering the tiller. ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile

... new legislation which would operate to the injury or embarrassment of the large body of respectable artisans and laborers. The mechanic who emigrates to the West and pursues his calling must labor long before he can purchase a quarter section of land, whilst the tiller of the soil who accompanies him obtains a farm at once by the bounty of the Government. The numerous body of mechanics in our large cities can not, even by emigrating to the West, take advantage of the provisions of this bill without entering upon a new occupation for which their habits ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson

... vessel, and coming over the bow on the upper deck, and there hove in taut and fastened. When let down to its greatest depth it required occasionally the strength of fifteen men to move the large tiller. ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan

... Murtagh and the Malay rushed, or rather tottered, to the oars; while the captain threw himself into the stern, and took hold of the tiller-ropes. ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... a Thames waterman, that he was quite able to manage the boat without a steersman, and Charley was nearly his equal. But there is some amusement in steering, and Katie was allowed to sit between the tiller-ropes. ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... of Hayti. If Cuba was Cathay (or China), Hayti, he felt sure, must be Cipango (or Japan). So he decided to sail into one of its harbors to spend Christmas Day. But just before Christmas morning dawned, the helmsman of the Santa Maria, thinking that everything was safe, gave the tiller into the hands of a boy—perhaps it was little Pedro the cabin boy—and went to sleep. The rest of the crew also were asleep. And the boy who, I suppose, felt quite big to think that he was really steering the Admiral's flagship, ...
— The True Story of Christopher Columbus • Elbridge S. Brooks

... I used to yaw about a good deal at first, but she tuck that out o' me in a day or two. If I put the helm only so much as one stroke to starboard, she guv' a tug at the tow-rope that brought the wind dead aft again; so I've gi'n it up, and lashed the tiller right amid-ships." ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... on softly round the tongue of land, being maybe about fifty paces from the mound across the water. And when we saw the other side of Sigurd's resting place, the oars stayed suddenly, and the jarl, who held the tiller, swung the boat away from the shore, and I think I knew then what ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler

... very much the way a weather vane acts in the air. The bow of the boat naturally turns toward the wind, thus relieving the sail of all pressure and keeping it shaking. But if by keeping the main sheet in your hand you hold the sail in a fixed position, and, at the same time, draw the tiller away from the sail, it will gradually fill with air beginning at the hoist or mast end of the sail and impel the boat in the direction in which you are steering. Given a certain direction in which you want to travel, the problem is, by letting out or hauling in your ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... that in my very young days there must, after all, have been something in me worthy to command that man's half-bitter fidelity, his half-ironic devotion. Many of Nostromo's speeches I have heard first in Dominic's voice. His hand on the tiller and his fearless eyes roaming the horizon from within the monkish hood shadowing his face, he would utter the usual exordium of his remorseless wisdom: "Vous autres gentilhommes!" in a caustic tone that hangs on my ear yet. Like Nostromo! "You hombres ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... well on paper, but I assure you it was a time of intense excitement to us; if in the moment of deadly struggle the tiller ropes had broken, or the helmsman had made one false turn of the wheel, we might have got across the boiling rapids, and then good-bye to sublunary friends; our bones might have been floating past Quebec before the news of ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... vividness, power, and pathos that the audience seemed to see every act of the drama and feel the pulsation of his great heart. Through an interpreter he afterwards narrated his manner of taking the vessel, and how it happened to reach American shores. How, after taking the ship, he stood by the tiller with drawn weapon and commanded the mate to steer back to Africa. During the day he complied, but at night took the opposite course. After sometime of circuitous wandering the vessel ran into Long Island Sound and was taken possession of by the United ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... out the shabby sail, set the rudder for a long tack downstream, and was off. The breeze was coming in gentle puffs, so that the boat moved slowly through the water, the ripples making a sleepy whisper under the bow and the tiller, now and then, jerking lazily under his hand. One side of the stream was marshy so that he pushed into tall grass and cat-tails and startled an indignant kingfisher who was dozing on a dead tree. The bird went skimming off, a flash of blue and white ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... all this turmoil was a pillar of inky blackness, which, when observed by the writer, who had the tiller, seemed fifty feet high and about ten feet wide. Now it was a hundred feet wide, and growing with ominous speed. The easy quarter breeze that had been fanning us along mysteriously crept away, as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various

... Tanner, by right of seniority, led the way in the Rosan as commodore of the fleet. He stood to his tiller like a graven image, looking neither to right nor left, but gripping his pipe with all the ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... Leslie rowed with a will, the cool breeze fanning his cheeks and lifting the masses of curly black hair. Old Crusoe steered. For more than an hour Leslie kept his place at the oars; but when the boat's head was turned homeward, he resigned it to Crusoe and took his place at the tiller. ...
— Leslie Ross: - or, Fond of a Lark • Charles Bruce

... saucy little 15-ton craft that had been in her track since she left the Otley river before noon, dipping and straining, with every inch of sail set; as mad a stern chase as ever was witnessed: and who could the man at the tiller, clad cap-A-pie in tarpaulin, be? She led him dancing away, to prove his resoluteness and laugh at him. She had the powerful wings, and a glory in them coming of this pursuit: her triumph was delicious, until the occasional ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... sleep. I suppose I was over-weary, and after a little feverish slumber by the tiller of the barge I sat ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells

... accident has just occurred. As the gig was coming alongside, under sail, the tiller broke, and the coxswain who was steering, fell overboard. He was a good swimmer, and struck out for the ship, not thirty yards distant, while the boat fell off rapidly to the leeward. In less than half a minute, a monstrous shark rose to the surface, seized the poor ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge

... necessary to every agriculturist. On this depends the importance of the technic secondary industries of agriculture, which are, in principle, opposed to the division of labor. Hence, too, almost any person engaged in a trade, no matter of what kind, supposes a greater number of customers than a tiller of the land ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... Blue Peter sitting on the coamings of the hatch, his feet hanging down within. He was lost in the book he was reading. Curious to see, without disturbing him, what it was that so absorbed him, Malcolm dropped quietly on the tiller, and thence on the deck, and approaching softly peeped over his shoulder. He was reading the epistle of James the apostle. Malcolm fell a-thinking. From Peter's thumbed bible his eyes went wandering through the thicket of masts, in which moved so many busy seafarers, and then ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... monsieur," Dominic broke the silence suddenly in an austere voice. "Take hold of the tiller." He bent his hood to my ear. "The balancelle is yours. Your own hands must deal the blow. I—I have yet another piece of work to do." He spoke up loudly to the man who steered. "Let the signorino take the tiller, and you with the others stand ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... by this time clear of the reef and in open water, so I went down to breakfast, leaving Bob at the tiller. Ella was very penitent for her late "naughtiness," as she termed it, and was so lavish with her endearments, to make up for it, that I would very willingly have experienced such a "thunder-squall" every day of my life to have the air cleared afterwards in so agreeable ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood

... towards the Bay of Belle Amour. She reached it in the late afternoon of the next day. Bissonnette did not know the object of the expedition, but he had caught the spirit of the affair, and his eyes were like spots of steel as he held the sheet or took his turn at the tiller. Joan's eyes were now on the sky, now on the sail, and now on the land, weighing as wisely as her father the advantage of the wind, yet dwelling on that cave where skeletons kept ward over the spoils ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... in place of a wise aloofness, befitting a wearer of the third Gold Button and the Horn Belt-clasp, in situations of critical perplexity, seems by his own ingenuous showing to have maintained an unparalleled aptitude for behaving either with the crystalline simplicity of a Kan-su earth-tiller, or the misplaced buffoonery of a seventh-grade body-writher taking the least significant part in an ill-equipped Swatow one-cash Hall of Varied Melodies." Assuredly, if your striking and well-chosen metaphors ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah

... fine breeze sprang up from the north-east, and, putting the boat before it, George seated himself in the stern, tiller in hand, and steered as near a southerly course as the boat, without canvas, ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... and indecision. After clearing the lock and exchanging a word or two with the woman at the toll, the bargeman had laid himself down upon a heap of empty sacks, to take a nap most probably, leaving his boy in charge of the tiller. Soon bargee was wrapped in slumber, and the boy buried in a penny dreadful. Darby and Joan did not desire to disturb either of them. They were anxious above all things to get on board the boat unnoticed; so, after a hurried consultation carried on in ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur



Words linked to "Tiller" :   get, sodbuster, farm machine, grow, produce, acquire, harrow, husbandman, cultivator, rudder, farmer, shoot, develop, till, granger, stool, lever



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