kilt

See also: Kilt

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɪlt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪlt

Etymology 1

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.

Alternative forms

• kelt, quelt (obsolete)

Verb

kilt (third-person singular simple present kilts, present participle kilting, simple past and past participle kilted)

1. To gather up (skirts) around the body. [from 14th c.]
   • 1933, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Cloud Howe (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 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

A kilt

kilt (plural kilts)

1. 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.]
2. (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
3. 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.
   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     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.

4. 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

• filibeg, philibeg

Derived terms

• kilt jacket
• kilt pin

Translations

traditional Scottish garment

• Bulgarian: килт m (kilt)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 蘇格蘭短裙／苏格兰短裙 (Sūgélán duǎnqún)

• Czech: kilt (cs) m
• Danish: kilt c
• Esperanto: kilto
• Finnish: kiltti (fi)
• French: kilt (fr) m
• Georgian: კილტი (ḳilṭi)
• German: Schottenrock m, Kilt (de) m
• Hungarian: kilt (hu), skót szoknya (hu)
• Icelandic: skotapils n
• Italian: gonnellino m
• Japanese: キルト (kiruto)
• Korean: 킬트 (kilteu)
• Marathi: किल्ट m (kilṭa)
• Norman: cotelle Êcossaise f
• Norwegian: kilt
• Polish: kilt (pl) m
• Portuguese: kilt (pt) m
• Russian: килт (ru) m (kilt), шотла́ндская ю́бка f (šotlándskaja júbka)
• Scottish Gaelic: fèileadh m, fèileadh beag m, fèileadh mòr m
• Spanish: falda escocesa f
• Swedish: kilt (sv) c
• Ukrainian: кілт (uk) m (kilt)
• Welsh: cilt m

Etymology 2

From kill +‎ -t.

Alternative forms

• killt

Verb

kilt

1. (obsolete or colloquial, especially Ireland or African-American Vernacular) Nonstandard form of killed: simple past and past participle of kill.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     that unspotted Lamb,
     That for the Sins of all the World was kilt

   • 1970 (reprinted 1999) Norman R. Yetman (ed.), Voices from Slavery: 100 Authentic Slave Narratives, Courier Corporation, →ISBN, p. 160:

     But tweren’t so awful long before Marse Hampton got kilt in de big battle, and Marse Thad, too. Dey was both kilt in de charge, right dere on de breastworks, with de guns in dey hands, dem two young masters of mine, right dere in dat Gettysburg battle […] And I was eighteen in dat October after dat big fight what Marse Thad and Marse Hampton got kilt in.

   • 2014, Howard Frank Mosher, North Country: A Personal Journey Through the Borderland:

     She could fight, too, when I got snuffy. […] Once I come home from elk camp so drunk I couldn't hardly sit my horse, and Sylvie near to kilt me, she fought me so hard.

Anagrams

• lik't

Cebuano

Etymology

From English kilt.

Noun

kilt

1. a kilt

French

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

kilt m (plural kilts)

1. kilt

Further reading

• “kilt”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Norwegian Bokmål

Verb

kilt

1. past participle of kile

Polish

kilt

Etymology

Borrowed from English kilt.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkilt/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ilt
• Syllabification: kilt

Noun

kilt m inan

1. kilt (traditional Scottish garment, usually worn by men)

Declension

Declension of kilt

	singular	plural
nominative	kilt	kilty
genitive	kiltu	kiltów
dative	kiltowi	kiltom
accusative	kilt	kilty
instrumental	kiltem	kiltami
locative	kilcie	kiltach
vocative	kilcie	kilty

Further reading

• kilt in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• kilt in Polish dictionaries at PWN
• kilt in PWN's encyclopedia

Portuguese

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English kilt.

Pronunciation

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ˈkil.tɨ/ [ˈkiɫ.tɨ]

Noun

kilt m (plural kilts)

1. kilt (traditional Scottish man’s skirt)

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from English kilt.

Noun

kilt m (plural kilturi)

1. kilt

Declension

	singular			plural
	indefinite	definite		indefinite	definite
nominative-accusative	kilt	kiltul		kilturi	kilturii
genitive-dative	kilt	kiltului		kilturi	kilturilor
vocative	kiltule			kilturilor