Dictionary

stillth en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /stɪlθ/

Etymology

From Middle English stilthe, from Old English *stilþ, *stillþ, *stillþu (“stillness”), from Proto-Germanic *stilliþō (“stillness, quietness”), equivalent to still + -th (abstract nominal suffix). Cognate with West Frisian stilte (“silence, stillness, quietness”), Dutch stilte (“silence, stillness, quietness”), Low German stilte (“quietness”), Old High German stillida (“quietness”).

Meanings

1. (uncountable) The state, quality, or condition of being still; stillness; tranquility; peace.
   • […] a battle rages in the old pile again tonight. "Will no stilth ever come to bad auld Fergus Keep?" a man of the roads once said to me, when I stopped to rest on a bridge high above the gorge of White Abbey. He was maundering and mouthing about battles and thirst, in one breath. 1953, James Reynolds, James Reynolds' Ireland:
   • Whenever I was in deep thought in the stillth of a night in longing for the mainland, it seemed that a voice was calling in the dark. 1965, West & East, an independent monthly:
   • And suddenly the magic of this place — the fragrance and the stillth and the peace of it — took Dicky by the throat. 1921, Gilbert Frankau, The seeds of enchantment:

Forms