Meanings
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1
noun
a lever used to turn a boat's rudder and control its direction
She pushed the tiller to port and guided the boat around the buoy.
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2
noun
a person who cultivates land
The poem honors the patient tiller who works the soil each spring.
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3
noun
a machine or implement that breaks up and cultivates soil
He used a small rotary tiller to prepare the vegetable bed.
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4
noun
a shoot that grows from the base of a grass or cereal plant
Each wheat plant produced several strong tillers after the rain.
Thesaurus
Etymology
The cultivator noun is till + -er. The steering noun comes from Middle English teler, a crossbow stock or tiller, through Anglo-French teiler. The plant-shoot noun descends from Old English telgor, "twig or shoot." The soil-working machine extends the agricultural verb till.