kilt
/kɪlt/
kilt verb: to gather up (skirts) around the body. Also the nonstandard form of killed.
Verb
kilt (third-person singular simple present kilts, present participle kilting, simple past and past participle kilted)
- To gather up (skirts) around the body.
- 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 […].1933, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Cloud Howe (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 385
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.
- 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 wraparound, sometimes pleated throughout the entire circumference; also worn by boys in the 19th-century United States.
- 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.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
- 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.
Also used as
kilt is also the nonstandard form of killed.
kilt meaning in Marathi
kilt in Marathi
- traditional Scottish garment
- किल्ट kilṭa
Examples of kilt in a sentence
- By contrast, the shendyt kilt is well attested on Egyptian sculptures of all periods.
- The Heathers are all kilts, scrunchies, and shoulder pads, jostling alongside the letterman-jacketed homophobic jocks.
- But others wanted their picture taken with him, asking where they could get their own kilts.
Synonyms of kilt
Forms of kilt
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | kilts |
| present participle | kilting |
| past participle | kilted |
| past | kilted |
| alternative form | killt |
| alternative form (obsolete) | kelt |
| alternative form (obsolete) | quelt |
| Noun | |
| plural | kilts |
Origin of kilt
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.
Words formed from kilt
Phrases with kilt
Words that rhyme with kilt
7 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about kilt
- What does kilt mean?
- Kilt means to gather up (skirts) around the body.
- What is kilt in Marathi?
- Kilt in Marathi is किल्ट (kilṭa). See Kilt meaning in Marathi.
- What part of speech is kilt?
- Kilt can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce kilt?
- Kilt is pronounced /kɪlt/.
- What is the past tense of kilt?
- The past tense of kilt is kilted.
Words near kilt in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: kilt (page history and authors). 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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-kilt.wav.
Cite this entry: “kilt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/kilt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.