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stilted

[stil-tid]

Example Sentences Origin

adjective

stiffly dignified or formal, as speech or literary style; pompous.

Architecture. (of an arch) resting on imposts treated in part as downward continuations of the arch.

Origin:
1610–20; stilt + -ed³

Related forms

un·stilt·ed, adjective

Synonyms
1. wooden, mannered, stuffy, constrained.

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Stilted is always a great word to know.

So is atrium. Does it mean:

a sky lit central court in a contemporary building or house; a courtyard, flanked or surrounded by porticoes, in front of an early Christian church

an area of wall enframed by an arch or vault

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Example Sentences

Within the advertising industry, his awkward and stilted performance was widely criticized.

Not a mentoring program, which seems formal and stilted.

When they do speak, which isn't often, it is in long stilted phrases about the wisdom of the ancients.

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Within the advertising industry, his awkward and stilted performance was widely criticized.

Not a mentoring program, which seems formal and stilted.

When they do speak, which isn't often, it is in long stilted phrases about the wisdom of the ancients.

Yoga-minded hideaway of stilted cottages under a jungle canopy, linked by footpaths and stone stairs.

Unfortunately, this stilted computer speech leaves people cold.

Note awkward body language, stilted movements, and annoying verbal tics.

But in the last few years the conversation has become stilted.

His stilted accent clearly marks him as being non-American.

It's a stilted synthetic voice, but better than nothing.

Statler1976: they should've brought in m night to make the robo-dialogue more stilted.

Moreover, stilted writing has long been part of the culture of bureaucracy.

It leads to a stilted public debate at home and, no matter how snazzy the packaging, will mean poor journalism abroad.

Our visit coincided with high tide, which had flooded the ground beneath the community's stilted homes.

The reading of the free comics is as stilted and awkward as you might expect.

We know all about that book: it is dated, stilted and full of distasteful stereotypes.

Indonesian flight announcements definitely use superfluous words and stilted constructions.

There has got to be some other method of conversation that is less stilted than this thread.

The interviews, although expert and informed, felt a bit on the stilted side.

Makepeace is a stilted wooden actor who can do little with his role except look attractive.

Her plot, while serviceable, is slightly stilted due to the constraints of trying to tie in the game.

There was some rather stilted speculative conversation.

Boles is handsome, but a little stilted in his movements.

Even in this occasionally stilted early film, the director's bemused intelligence comes through.

Korn would sometimes try to build momentum by speeding up his picking, but his tempo changes were stilted.

It zooms from childhood to the present, filled with stilted dialogue and emotional signposts.

Some of the episodes may strike you as a bit artificial or contrived, as often the stilted behavior of self-conscious rustics is.

Its language can have an inauthentically stilted ring:.

It makes for stilted interviews, but those are our rules.

Contact between races often remains stilted as people get to know one another on a more equal footing for the first time.

It's always fun to mock the stilted language of teenagers and lament the decline of letter writing.

The actors do their best, but the storyline is trite and stilted when dwelling on matters of honor and romance.

The language is often profane yet stilted and generic.

Most devices with speech-recognition capabilities require users to speak commands in an artificially clear, stilted way.

The action is stilted and stagey, the tension indifferently drawn.

Conversations tend to be stilted and punctuated with uncomfortable silences.

Looms click as women weave checkered sarongs underneath stilted houses.

COLLAPSE

Dictionary.com Unabridged

noun

one of two poles, each with a support for the foot at some distance above the bottom end, enabling the wearer to walk with his or her feet above the ground.

one of several posts supporting a structure built above the surface of land or water.

Ceramics. a three-armed support for an object being fired.

any of several white-and-black wading birds, especially Cladorhynchus leucocephalus and Himantopus himantopus, having long, bright pink legs and a long, slender black bill.

British Dialect.

a plow handle.

a crutch.

verb (used with object)

to raise on or as if on stilts.

Origin:
1275–1325; Middle English stilte; cognate with Low German stilte pole, German Stelze

Related forms

stilt·like, adjective

Link To stilted

Collins

World English Dictionary

stilted (ˈstɪltɪd)

—*adj*
1.	(of speech, writing, etc) formal, pompous, or bombastic
2.	not flowing continuously or naturally: stilted conversation
3.	architect (of an arch) having vertical piers between the impost and the springing

'stiltedly

—*adv*

'stiltedness

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

stilt

c.1320, "a crutch," from P.Gmc. *steltijon (cf. M.L.G., M.Du. stelte "stilt," O.H.G. stelza "plow handle, crutch"), from PIE *stel- "to put, stand, place, cause to stand" (see stall (1)). Application to "wooden poles for walking across marshy ground, etc." is from c.1440.

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Meaning "one of the posts on which a building is raised from the ground" is first attested 1697. Stilted in the fig. sense of "pompous, stuffy" is first recorded 1820.

COLLAPSE

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Matching Quote

"We have taken beauty and exchanged it for stilted voices."

-D.W. Griffith

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