kilt
/kɪlt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.88 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
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
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.
Example Sentences
- "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 […]."
- "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."
- "that unspotted Lamb, That for the Sins of all the World was kilt"
- "‘Well, one Sunday morning, I took ‘Brown Betsy,’ my old two shooter, and all the dogs, and off I sot for the cane brake in the hollow, over back of Ike Hamberlin’s, the steam doctor’ — for I know’d Ike would be tarnation riley if I kilt a bar any where close to his clearin, and that made me sorter ambitious like."
- "This lamentation was stopped short by Mr. Consadine: "There is no manner of doubt about it," said he. "It was Barry that kilt my best cow, and all he has left me is the hide o' the poor baste to comfort myself with; but it will be a warnin' to Dick Consadine, for the rest of his life, nivir again to play off his thricks upon thravellers.""
- "We even concede the presence of Daniel Boone, because he “kilt a bar” and made a note of it on the bark of a tree away out West on the Kentucky frontier."
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
Inflected Forms
kilts (present, singular)
kilting (participle, present)
kilted (participle, past)
kilted (past)
kelt (alternative, obsolete)
quelt (alternative, obsolete)
kilts (plural)
killt (alternative)