Thill

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Either of the two long wooden poles on a cart or carriage between which a horse is harnessed
2. One of the pair of shafts projecting from a vehicle that a draft animal is hitched between to pull it
3. A long pole attached at the front of a wagon or carriage, used to guide and harness the animal pulling it

Etymology: The shaft of a cart or carriage, the long pole on each side that the horse is harnessed between, is the modern sense of "thill", but its older meanings were far more general. In Old English "þille" meant a board, plank, stake or pole, and it belonged to a family of words for flat timber that also produced the Dutch "deel" and German "Diele", both still meaning a plank or floorboard. The sense of a shaft for harnessing an animal is a narrowing that developed later, as the plank-like pole became specialised to the vehicle. The word is a doublet of "deal", the timber term, meaning the two words descend from the same source but reached English by different routes and took on different meanings. "Thill" survived mainly in dialect and technical use, while "deal" became the common word for a board of sawn wood. Its close relative "theal", meaning board or plank, shows the same root in another dialect form.

Synonyms: shaft, pole