Citations:kilter

English citations of kilter

Noun

					1896	1909
ME «	15th c.	16th c.	17th c.	18th c.	19th c.	20th c.	21st c.

1. (chiefly in the negative) (Good) condition, form, or order; fettle. [from 17th c.]
   • 1890, Charles Erskine, chapter V, in Twenty Years before the Mast: […], Boston, Mass.: Published by the author, →OCLC, page 72:

     [T]hey are either round-shouldered, knock-kneed, bow-legged, or parrot-toed; some are also badly cross-eyed. It seems as if they can see two different ways at the same time. Jack says they are lop-sided
 and out of kilter altogether.

   • 1909, Robert W[illiam] Service, “The Man from Eldorado”, in Ballads of a Cheechako, Toronto, Ont.: William Briggs, →OCLC, part I, stanza 2, page 71:

     [H]e lived on tinned tomatoes, beef embalmed and sourdough bread, / On rusty beans and bacon furred with mould; / His stomach’s out of kilter and his system full of lead, / But it's over, and his poke is full of gold.