Word.ws English Dictionary

gilt

/ɡɪlt/

gilt noun: gold or other metal in a thin layer; gilding. Also the simple past and past participle of gild.

Noun (1)

gilt (usually uncountable, plural gilts)

  1. (usually) Gold or other metal in a thin layer; gilding.
    1. (broadly, usually) Gold-colored paint or other coating.
  2. (slang, usually) Money.
    • three corrupted men […]
      Have, for the gilt of France,—O guilt indeed!—
      Confirm'd conspiracy with fearful France1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  3. (UK, countable, usually) A security (usually a bond) issued by the Bank of England (see gilt-edged).
    • higher gilt yields
    • However, as asset prices slumped over the week – including UK government bonds, or gilts – those banks required more collateral to offset the pension funds’ liabilities, forcing the funds to dump assets and raise cash at short notice.2022 September 29, Kalyeena Makortoff, Sarah Butler, “‘I’d never seen anything like it’: how market turmoil sparked a pension fund selloff”, in The Guardian
  4. (obsolete, usually) A gilded object, an object covered with gold.
    • The parysh of Seint Powle in Norwiche. Thomas Blocke, George Wylson, Churchwardens. Have sold in plate, gylte and parcell gylte, to the summe of iiij ownce, every ownce at the price of iiijs. viijd.1864, “Returns of Church Goods in The Churches of the City of Norwich”, in Commission of 6 Edward VI, 1552, quoted in Norfolk Archaeology, Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society, page 371

Adjective

gilt (comparative more gilt, superlative most gilt)

  1. Golden coloured; gilded.
    • The Jones man was looking at her hard. Now he reached into the hatch of his vest and fetched out a couple of cigars, everlasting big ones, with gilt bands on them.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter X, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC

Noun (2)

gilt (plural gilts)

  1. (UK, regional) A young female pig, at or nearing the age of first breeding.

Noun (3) capitalized: GILT

GILT (uncountable)

  1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of globalization, internationalization, localization, and translation
    • Whether you’re an experienced GILT professional, an internationalization or Unicode enthusiast, just starting out, or a student, the UTW 2024 sessions will enrich your understanding of key issues!2023, “Unicode Technology Workshop 2024”, in Unicode Technology Workshop 2024, Mountain View, California: Unicode Consortium, retrieved 19 Nov 2025

Also used as

gilt is also the simple past and past participle of gild.

gilt meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

gilt in Hindi

गिल्ट

gilt in Marathi

गिल्ट

gilt in Urdu

گلٹ

gilt in Bengali

গিল্ট
More languagesFewer languages
gilt in Telugu
గిల్ట్
gilt in Malayalam
ഗിൽറ്റ്
gilt in Kannada
ಗಿಲ್ಟ್
gilt in Gujarati
ગિલ્ટ
gilt in Odia
ଗିଲ୍ଟ
gilt in Nepali
गिल्ट

Examples of gilt in a sentence

  • Torrentius shows a stone waterjug, while Visscher has an ornate ewer, presumably in silver or gilt.
  • The blade is 33 in. long, of triangular section, etched, gilt and blued at the hilt.
  • There was a gigantic electrolier, ten feet high, with upward-curling gilt branches opening into cloudy glass lilies of light.

All 18 example sentences with gilt

Forms of gilt

Noun
pluralgilts
alternative formyilt
Adjective
comparativemore gilt
superlativemost gilt

Plural of gilt: gilts

Origin of gilt

Past participle of gild (“to cover in gold”), thus meaning literally “(something) covered in gold”. Ultimately related to gold (which see). Compare feed, which is related (similarly by ablaut) to food. Cognate with Dutch (ver)guld, Icelandic gyllt and Faroese gylt.

From Middle English gilt, gylt, from Old Norse gyltr; compare geld and yelt.

Words formed from gilt

Phrases with gilt

Words that rhyme with gilt

7 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about gilt

What does gilt mean?
Gilt means gold or other metal in a thin layer; gilding.
What is gilt in Hindi?
Gilt in Hindi is गिल्ट. See Gilt meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is gilt?
Gilt can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce gilt?
Gilt is pronounced /ɡɪlt/ (UK).
What is the plural of gilt?
The plural of gilt is gilts.

Words near gilt in the dictionary

  1. gilsonite
  2. gilsonites
  3. Gilstrap
  4. Gilstraps
  5. Gilsum
  6. gilt
  7. gilt silver
  8. gilt-edged
  9. gilt-head
  10. gilt-head bream
  11. gilt-head breams

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gilt (page history and authors); GILT (page history and authors); gilt (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gilt (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gilt (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gilt (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gilt (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gilt (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gilt (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gilt (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gilt (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); gilt (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-guilt.wav, En-us-gilt.ogg.

Cite this entry: “gilt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gilt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.