When I came to the river, I ached in sympathy with the shipping painfully atilt on the rock-like surface of the brine, which broke against the piers, and sprayed itself over them like showers of powdered quartz.

In other villages the shawled women sat knitting behind piles of beets and cabbages and apples, their farm-carts atilt in the sun.

1954, Allen Ginsberg, Journal entry in Gordon Ball (ed.), Journals, New York: Grove, 1977, p. 70,
Pink bedroom lamp, shade atilt over Uncle Abe’s ancient clean radio,

Ale should not be drunk under five dayes old; new Ale is unwholsome, sowre Ale, and dead, and Ale which do stand atilt is most unwholesome.

In that nice Moment, as another Lye
Stood just a-tilt, the Minister came by.

[…] the slope flattened to a wide shelf where limestone cropped through the heather and many huge boulders were scattered atilt.

Had earthquakes shaken the windows atilt so they mirrored intruders with distorted gleams and glares?

to run / ride atilt at someone or something

The shadow of death to David is but the shadow of evill. Though ten thousand Curiassiers run upon him atilt with envenom’d and poysoned spears, he layes him down in the bosome of God, he sleeps in peace;

1895, F. F. Montrésor, Into the Highways and Hedges, New York: Appleton, Part 2, Chapter 9, p. 235,
Other people may ride atilt against all the problems one bruises head and heart over. Good luck go with them, and more power to their elbows!

A butterfly flew into the garden, danced a stately minuet mid-air, courtsied, and settled atilt the top rail of the old “snake fence.”

1982, Jean Scott Wood Creighton (as J. S. Borthwick), The Case of the Hook-billed Kites, New York: St. Martin’s Press, Chapter 11, p. 29,
[He] was balanced atilt a wooden chair, his legs resting on a low file cabinet.

With his shy grin, bushy black hair, and thick plastic-framed glasses riding atilt his nose, Reza looked like a high school techno-whiz temporarily locked out of the computer lab.

Atilt

Meaning

Adj

Adv

Prep

Synonyms