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Literary notes about tilt (AI summary)

Writers deploy "tilt" in various ways to enrich their narratives, often merging literal and metaphorical meanings. In some cases, it vividly describes physical actions—such as a sudden, forceful movement or collision (see [1], [2], [3])—while in other contexts it evokes the spirit of medieval tournaments or duels, where a joust or contest is central to the narrative ([4], [5], [6]). At times, "tilt" highlights subtle physical nuances in character behavior, like a defiant head tilt or a shift in bearing that hints at an inner mood or attitude ([7], [8], [9], [10]). Thus, the word serves as a versatile literary tool, capable of conveying both the tangible dynamics of movement and the intangible shifts of perspective.
  1. Thus, he was strong from the two days’ eating a lynx had afforded him when the hungry wolf-pack ran full tilt upon him.
    — from White Fang by Jack London
  2. And that was far behind when, abruptly, with a grinding crash of brakes, the cab came from full headlong tilt to a dead halt within twice its length.
    — from The Bandbox by Louis Joseph Vance
  3. Suddenly, three paces from my enemy, I unexpectedly made up my mind—I closed my eyes, and we ran full tilt, shoulder to shoulder, against one another!
    — from White Nights and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  4. Break a lance, And run a tilt at death within a chair?
    — from The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
  5. But in this tournament can no man tilt, Except the lady he loves best be there.
    — from Idylls of the King by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson
  6. Youth, we are damsels-errant, and we ride, Armed as ye see, to tilt against the knights There at Caerleon, but have lost our way: To right?
    — from Idylls of the King by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson
  7. Even the tilt of her crazy old bonnet could not detract from a strange new dignity that clothed her.
    — from The Best Short Stories of 1917, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
  8. It’s the way yer hold yer head, tilt yer chin up.—It’s accent.
    — from The Rustle of Silk by Cosmo Hamilton
  9. she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt of her nose.
    — from Ulysses by James Joyce
  10. Her chin was still at a slightly defiant tilt.
    — from Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter

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