Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A light, two-wheeled, open carriage with two seats, used in the 1800s.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A gig or two-wheeled carriage without a top or cover.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A kind of gig or two-wheeled carriage, without a top or cover.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun historical A small open two-wheeled carriage.
  • noun slang, obsolete Sixpence (formerly the fare from Gravesend to Tilbury Fort).

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[After Tilbury, a London coach builder of the 1800s.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the surname Tilbury (the inventor).

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Examples

  • The wheelwright had seen at the first glance that the tilbury was a hired vehicle.

    Les Miserables 2008

  • The wheelwright had seen at the first glance that the tilbury was a hired vehicle.

    Les Miserables, Volume I, Fantine 1862

  • The wheelwright had seen at the first glance that the tilbury was a hired vehicle.

    Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1843

  • He went to the theatre, drove a "tilbury," and attended native _réunions_, to deploy his abilities before the _beau sexe_ of his class.

    The Philippine Islands John Foreman

  • It was a tilbury harnessed to a small white horse.

    Les Miserables 2008

  • “It was a frightful old trap; it rests flat on the axle; it is an actual fact that the seats were suspended inside it by leather thongs; the rain came into it; the wheels were rusted and eaten with moisture; it would not go much further than the tilbury; a regular ramshackle old stage-wagon; the gentleman would make a great mistake if he trusted himself to it,” etc., etc.

    Les Miserables 2008

  • It was a two-wheeled vehicle, which claimed none of the modern appellations of tilbury, tandem, dennet, or the like; but aspired only to the humble name of that almost forgotten accommodation, a whiskey; or, according to some authorities, a tim-whiskey.

    Saint Ronan's Well 2008

  • That night the wagon which was descending to M. sur M. by the Hesdin road, collided at the corner of a street, just as it was entering the town, with a little tilbury harnessed to a white horse, which was going in the opposite direction, and in which there was but one person, a man enveloped in a mantle.

    Les Miserables 2008

  • I own my ears did tingle a little at the word treasure, and that a handsome tilbury, with a neat groom in blue and scarlet livery, having a smart cockade on his glazed hat, seemed as it were to glide across the room before gay eyes, while a voice, as of a crier, pronounced my ear,

    The Monastery 2008

  • The wheel of the tilbury received quite a violent shock.

    Les Miserables 2008

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