Stilted
adj, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 simple past and past participle of stilt form-of, participle, past
- 1 Making use of or possessing a stilt or stilts, or things resembling stilts; raised on stilts.
"And laugh at this fantaſtic Mummery, / This antic Prelude of groteſque Events, / Where Dwarfs are often ſtilted, and betray / A Littleneſs of ſoul by Worlds o'er-run, / And Nations laid in blood."
- 2 Elevated or raised in a contrived or unnatural way; stiff and artificially formal or pompous; also, depending on redundant, unnecessary elements. figuratively
"He gave a stilted bow and left."
- 3 Of a building or architectural feature such as an arch or vault: supported by stilts (“supporting pillars or posts”); also (generally) having the main part raised above the usual level by some structure.
"In Winchester Cathedral and Romsey Abbey Church, we have examples of what is called the stilted or horse-shoe arch, which is where the curvature of the arch does not spring immediately from the capitals or imposts of the piers, but the extreme points of the semicircle are continued straight down below the spring of the curve before they rest on the imposts, thus giving the idea of an arch stilted or raised, and somewhat approximating in form that of a horse-shoe."
- 1 artificially formal wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Your playing sounds a bit stilted. You have to loosen up your fingers."
Etymology
From stilt + -ed.
Related phrases
More for "stilted"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.