Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Out of kilter

Now here's a phrase for these crazy days: out of kilter.

How perfect, right?

I think of it as a feeling of coming apart at the seams in a messy way, very much like the YouTube video of a washing machine going to pieces at the end of this post. (You really need to watch this video.)

However, I have no idea what a kilter is, and how this phrase came about.

Do you?
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If you're as clueless as I am, keep reading.

The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer provides a definition, an alternate phrase, and a shrug:

out of kilter. Also, out of whack. No properly adjusted, not working well, out of order. The first term, also spelled kelter, dates from the early 1600s and its origin is not known. The precise allusion of the variant, a colloquial term dating from the late 1800s, is also unclear. Possibly it relates to a whack, or blow, throwing something off, or some suggest, to wacky, that is, "crazy."

At least the Online Etymological Dictionary provides a definition of kelter to help us along:

"order, good condition," in out of kilter (1620s), apparently a variant of English dialectal kelter (c. 1600) "good condition, order," a word of unknown origin.

The Phrase Finder agrees that it is a variant of an older English dialect word kelter, meaning good health; good condition. He then adds:

In 1643, the English Protestant theologian Roger Williams travelled to America and made a study of Native American languages, especially Narragansett, an Algonquian language. He subsequently published A Key Into the Language of America, which was a glossary of the language he had heard, which included this comment: "Their Gunnes they [native Americans] often sell many a score to the English, when they are a little out of frame or Kelter."

... This is seriously out of kilter.