Jilling about

[Gryphon2]

Playing scrabble tonight with my wife I used "Jill" meaning to sail deliberately slowly. On trying to prove its meaning to her I found some rather different definitions and apart from on this august site was unable to find any use of it in the way I have always known. I shall be much more cautious using the term now in case people misinterpret what I have been up to.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Playing scrabble tonight with my wife I used "Jill" meaning to sail deliberately slowly. On trying to prove its meaning to her I found some rather different definitions and apart from on this august site was unable to find any use of it in the way I have always known. I shall be much more cautious using the term now in case people misinterpret what I have been up to.

Slowly and apparently aimlessly. It’s a thing, definitely. Itks the term we use to describe the sailing in between finshing one race and starting the next. Often with the jib backed, and the bucket in use. We have an electric bilge pump…

 

[Mistroma]

Just checked and there seems to be another definition for Jilling but Jill seems safer. Probably best not to try that one in Scrabble then explain to your wife that it is a well known term and you can't understand why she pretends otherwise.

Think I'll stop saying Jilling around when sailing. I'd never thought to look up the definition before.

 

[Stemar]

I'd never heard the term. Well, that'll teach me to get curious...

 

[oilybilge]

Next time wave a copy of WE DIDN'T MEAN TO GO TO SEA at her. The chap at the beginning spends a lot of time jilling about outside Harwich.

I don't think Arthur Ransome ever used the word in the second sense.

 

[Juan Twothree]

Playing scrabble tonight with my wife I used "Jill" meaning to sail deliberately slowly. On trying to prove its meaning to her I found some rather different definitions and apart from on this august site was unable to find any use of it in the way I have always known. I shall be much more cautious using the term now in case people misinterpret what I have been up to.

"Jill" is also a female ferret.

 

[johnalison]

I also use it to mean a kind of aimless pottering. I have an urge to spell it ‘gill’ but don’t know if this is authentic.

 

[ylop]

I also use it to mean a kind of aimless pottering. I have an urge to spell it ‘gill’ but don’t know if this is authentic.

Jill about - Practical Boat Owner

 

[dgadee]

Scrabble dictionaries have no definitions. That will solve your problem.

 

[rotrax]

IIRC, a female Ferret is called a Jill.

A memory from my rabbiting days.....................

 

[mjcoon]

I also use it to mean a kind of aimless pottering. I have an urge to spell it ‘gill’ but don’t know if this is authentic.

Isn't that the other sort of gill that goes in a pot? ;-)

 

[johnalison]

Isn't that the other sort of gill that goes in a pot? ;-)

According to ylop's link, that's where the current definition came from, so I was sort of right.

 

[LittleSister]

It's in the Shorter OED.

Jill
v.i. colloquial
Middle 20th Century [origin unknown]
Of a boat, move idly (about, around)


(Mind you another definition of Jill there is - An unchaste woman, a kept woman!)

 

[RupertW]

I also use it to mean a kind of aimless pottering. I have an urge to spell it ‘gill’ but don’t know if this is authentic.

I have also always spelt it in my head as “gill”, not sure why

 

[Greenheart]

Next time wave a copy of WE DIDN'T MEAN TO GO TO SEA at her. The chap at the beginning spends a lot of time jilling about outside Harwich.

I don't think Arthur Ransome ever used the word in the second sense.

Well remembered! I'd like to think that would have stirred in my memory, but it didn't.

 

[wingcommander]

Ear up norf, a gill is half a pint of ale.A Jill is a girl on a hill top

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Ear up norf, a gill is half a pint of ale.A Jill is a girl on a hill top

Judgng by a previous post, Jill is a girl on top, not necessarily on a hill top.