kilt
/kɪlt/ verb, noun
Forms kilts kilting kilted kelt quelt killt
- verb To gather up (skirts) around the body.
- noun 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.
- noun (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
- noun A plaid, pleated school uniform skirt sometimes structured as a wraparound, sometimes pleated throughout the entire circumference; also worn by boys in the 19th-century United States.
- noun 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.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English kilten (“to tuck up, gird”), apparently from North Germanic, ultimately from Old Norse kelta, kjalta (“skirt; lap”). Perhaps from Proto-Germanic *kelt-, *kelþǭ, *kilþį̄ (“womb”), from Proto-Indo-European *gelt- (“round body; child”). Cognate with Danish kilte (“to tuck”), Swedish kilta (“to swathe”). Related to English child.
From Middle English kilt, equivalent to kill + -t.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A kind of short petticoat, reaching from the waist to the knees, worn in the Highlands of Scotland by men, and in the Lowlands by young boys; a filibeg. [Written also kelt.]
- verb To tuck up; to truss up, as the clothes. [Scot.] Sir W. Scott.
Etymology [OGael. cealt clothes, or rather perh. fr. Dan. kilte op to truss, tie up, tuck up.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “kilt”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details