tilly

plural tillies

1. IrelandAn extra product given to a customer at no additional charge; a lagniappe.

   A bakereen's dusind with tithe tillies to boot.

   1939 May 4, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber Limited, →OCLC; republished London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1960, →OCLC

   3 more examples

   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 the snuff, and be sure to get my tillies.

   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

   At each door he poured from the can into a pint measure and into the house-wife's jug, always with a tilly for the cat, whether there was a cat or not, sometimes splashing the step with milk to the annoyance of the housewife.

   2007, Patrick Semple, The Rector who Wouldn't Pray for Rain

   Synonyms: lagniappe, pasella

plural tillies · alternative Tilly

1. UKA 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

   1 more example

   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

comparative more tilly · superlative most tilly

1. Containing till (unsorted glacial sediment).

plural Tillys

1. A diminutive of the female given name Matilda.

   2 more examples

   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 called her Matty.

   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, or dressed but aggressively nippled.

   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

2. A surname transferred from the given name.

plural Tillys

1. countableuncountableA number of places in France.
2. countableuncountableA surname from Old French.

   .

plural Tillies

1. 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