tilly
/ˈtɪli/
tilly noun: an extra product given to a customer at no additional charge; a lagniappe.
Noun (1)
tilly (plural tillies)
- An extra product given to a customer at no additional charge; a lagniappe.
- Myles: "Indeed your Honour may safely say so : Iwas ploughing away […] when I bethought how I forgot to tell little Jem, when he'd be buying my pen'orth of snuff, to be sure to get it in two separate ha'porths, the way he'd have the two tillies. So what could Ido but run home, to […] go myself for...1855, Legends of mount Leinster, by Harry Whitney
- He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white milk, not hers. […] She poured again a measureful and a tilly.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 1]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC
Noun (2)
tilly (plural tillies)
- A small open-backed truck.
- After a fortnight's careful nursing my leg healed and I was packed off in a tilly (utility truck) with my kit-bag to join my comrades at Fairmilehead.1978, Ada F Kay (A. J. Stewart), Died 1513-born 1929 / King's Memory, page 83
- One night soon after our arrival in Belgium, four of us set off to a dance in a rest centre, behind the lines, for the forces. We drove across a snowy waste in a tilly truck, singing "Lilly Marlene".1980, Once Upon a Ward: V.A.D.s' Own Stories and Pictures, page 119
- Synonyms:
- ute
Adjective
tilly (comparative more tilly, superlative most tilly)
- Containing till (unsorted glacial sediment).
Proper noun (1) capitalized: Tilly
Tilly (plural Tillys)
- A diminutive of the female given name Matilda.
- Tilly's name is Matilda. It was typical of Mum and Dad that they wouldn't let her be called Tilly when she came to them because that was the unusual shortening of Matilda, the unconventional one, and you never did unconventional things, you never did things to draw attention to yourself. So they...1990, Barbara Vine, Gallowglass, Curley Pub, published 1991, →ISBN, page 24
- Whether A.I. is really not trained on copyrighted material is a matter of some debate, but it appears to be trained on the most plentiful material online, which is the home videos you’ve uploaded to YouTube and porn, which could account for the amount of Tillys that appeared on a bed, half-dressed...2026 May 31, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, “Tilly Norwood, A.I. Actress, Wants to Know Why Everyone’s Mad at Her”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- A surname transferred from the given name.
Proper noun (2) capitalized: Tilly
Tilly (countable and uncountable, plural Tillys)
Noun (3) capitalized: Tilly
Tilly (plural Tillies)
- Alternative letter-case form of tilly.
- By the time he stooped to lift him up, we were all in the Tilly that Fiver had brought out to meet us.2012, David Fiddimore, Tuesday's War, →ISBN
Synonyms of tilly
Forms of tilly
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | tillies |
| alternative form | Tilly |
| plural | Tillies |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more tilly |
| superlative | most tilly |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Tillys |
Origin of tilly
From Irish tuilleadh (“more”).
From WWII British Army usage Tilly (“name of a range of British Army vehicles”), from utility.
From till + -y.
Phrases with tilly
Words that rhyme with tilly
Questions about tilly
- What does tilly mean?
- Tilly means an extra product given to a customer at no additional charge; a lagniappe.
- What part of speech is tilly?
- Tilly can be a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce tilly?
- Tilly is pronounced /ˈtɪli/.
- What is the plural of tilly?
- The plural of tilly is tillies.
Words near tilly in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tilly (page history and authors); Tilly (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tilly.wav.
Cite this entry: “tilly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tilly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.