Kilt
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: /kɪlt/
- Rhymes: -ɪlt
Alternative forms
Origin
Apparently of Scandinavian origin; compare Danish kilt ("to tuck"), Swedish kilta ("to swathe"), Old Norse kjalta ("skirt; lap") (perhaps from Proto-Germanic *kelt-, *kelþÅn, *kelþīn ("womb"), from Proto-Indo-European *gelt- ("round body, child")).
Full definition of kilt
Verb
- To gather up (skirts) around the body. from 14th c.
- 1933, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Cloud Howe, Polygon 2006 (A Scots Quair), p. 385:Else at her new place worked outdoor and indoor, she'd to kilt her skirts (if they needed kilting – and that was damned little with those short-like frocks) and go out and help at the spreading of dung ….
Noun
kilt
(plural kilts)- A traditional Scottish garment, usually worn by men, having roughly the same morphology as a wrap-around skirt, with overlapping front aprons and pleated around the sides and back, and usually made of twill-woven worsted wool with a tartan pattern. from 18th c.
- (historical) Any Scottish garment from which the above lies in a direct line of descent, such as the philibeg, or the great kilt or belted plaid;
- A plaid, pleated school uniform skirt sometimes structured as a wrap around, sometimes pleated throughout the entire circumference; also used as boys' wear in 19
- 1898, Winston Churchill, The Celebrity Chapter 1, I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I will have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I left New York for the West.
- A variety of non-bifurcated garments made for men and loosely resembling a Scottish kilt, but most often made from different fabrics and not always with tartan plaid designs.