Word.ws English Dictionary

at full tilt

at full tilt prepositional phrase: at full speed; very quickly.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) At full speed; very quickly.
    • Don't go racing around corners at full tilt or you'll hit someone.

Synonyms of at full tilt

Origin of at full tilt

Recorded c. 1600, perhaps from the interpretation of tilt (“a joust”) as derived from "leaning" into an attack, presumably a folk etymology, as tilt in late Middle English meant “a covering of coarse cloth, an awning” and referred to the barrier separating the combatants in a joust.

Questions about at full tilt

What does at full tilt mean?
At full tilt means at full speed; very quickly.
What part of speech is at full tilt?
At full tilt is a prepositional phrase.

Words near at full tilt in the dictionary

  1. at first hand
  2. at first sight
  3. at full pelt
  4. at full stretch
  5. at full throttle
  6. at full tilt
  7. at gaze
  8. at grade
  9. at grass
  10. at grips
  11. at gunpoint

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: at full tilt (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-at full tilt.ogg.

Cite this entry: “at full tilt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/at_full_tilt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.