Word.ws English Dictionary

kirtle

Syllables: kir·tle/ˈkəːt(ə)l/US/ˈkɚt(ə)l/

kirtle noun: a knee-length tunic.

Noun

kirtle (plural kirtles)

  1. A knee-length tunic.
    • All in a kirtle of diſcolourd ſay / He clothed was, ypaynted full of eies; / And in his boſome ſecretly there lay / An hatefull Snake, the which his taile vptyes / In many folds, and mortall ſting implyes.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 31, pages 53–54
    • Few words have occasioned such controversy among the commentators on our old plays, as this; and all for want of knowing that it is used in a two-fold sense, sometimes for the jacket merely, and sometimes for the train or upper petticoat attached to it. A full kirtle was always a jacket and...1816, Ben Jonson, “Cynthia’s Revels: Or, The Fountain of Self-love”, in W[illiam] Gifford, editor, The Works of Ben Jonson, in Nine Volumes. With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and a Biographical...
  2. A short jacket.
    • KIRTLE, […] a Sort of ſhort Jacket.[1721, N[athan] Bailey, “KIRTLE”, in An Universal Etymological English Dictionary: […], London: […] E. Bell, J. Darby, […], →OCLC, column 1
    • A man's jacket was also called a kirtle.1816, Ben Jonson, “Cynthia’s Revels: Or, The Fountain of Self-love”, in W[illiam] Gifford, editor, The Works of Ben Jonson, in Nine Volumes. With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and a Biographical...
  3. A woman's gown; a woman's outer petticoat or skirt.
    • Per[igot] VVell decked in a frocke of gray, / Wil[ly] hey ho, gray is greet, / Per. And in a kirtle of green ſay, / [Wil.] the greene is for maydens meet.1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC
    • A cap of flowers, and a kirtle / Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;c. 1587, Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Verb

kirtle (third-person singular simple present kirtles, present participle kirtling, simple past and past participle kirtled)

  1. (transitive) To clothe or cover with, or as if with, a kirtle; to hitch up (a long garment) to the length of a kirtle.
    • Eastward the Night / Climbs slow with hooded brows, and languid Day / Kirtles her robe fantastical, and leans / To take the embrace of darkness.1899, Charles Camp Tarelli, “God’s Magic”, in The Spectator, volume 82, London: F. C. Westley, →OCLC, page 521, column 1; reprinted in Frank M[orrison] Pixley, editor, The Argonaut, volume XLVIII...
    • Father Fogen led the way, his skinny shanks a gleaming white as he kirtled his cassock about his thighs. I was obliged to do the same, for the hillside above the house was thick with grass and thorny shrubs that caught at the coarse wool skirts of my borrowed robe.1994, Diana Gabaldon, Voyager (Outlander Series; 3), New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, →OCLC

kirtle meaning in Urdu

kirtle in Urdu

چوغہ, گھاگھرا, جامہ, لہنگا, لبادہ

Examples of kirtle in a sentence

  • Many of the church dignitaries are distinguishable by peculiarities of dress, as the shovel hat and kirtle.1832, “the original editor” [pseudonym; John Wade], “Church of England”, in The Extraordinary Black Book: An Exposition of Abuses in Church...
  • Her eyes were large, and full of light, / Her arms and neck were bare; / No garment she wore save a kirtle bright, / And her own long, raven hair.1842, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Quadroon Girl”, in Voices of the Night; and Other Poems, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields...
  • Dol[l Tearsheet] I loue thee better than I loue thee, ere a ſcuruy yong boy of them all. / Fal[staff] What ſtuffe wilt haue a kirtle of?c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares...
  • Around his waist was a kind of kirtle, the skin of some animal.1970, Larry Niven, Ringworld, page 260:

Forms of kirtle

Noun
pluralkirtles
Verb
third-person singular presentkirtles
present participlekirtling
past participlekirtled
pastkirtled

Origin of kirtle

From Middle English kirtel, from Old English cyrtel, cognate with Old Norse kyrtill (“tunic”) (whence Icelandic kyrtill, Danish kjortel (“gown, tunic”), Swedish kjortel (“petticoat, skirt”)), from Old Norse *kurtil-, supposedly a diminutive of *kurt-, from Latin curtus (“short, shortened”). Compare German Kittel.

Words formed from kirtle

Words that rhyme with kirtle

Questions about kirtle

What does kirtle mean?
Kirtle means a knee-length tunic.
What is kirtle in Urdu?
Kirtle in Urdu is چوغہ, گھاگھرا, جامہ. See Kirtle meaning in Urdu.
How do you use kirtle in a sentence?
Many of the church dignitaries are distinguishable by peculiarities of dress, as the shovel hat and kirtle.
What part of speech is kirtle?
Kirtle can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce kirtle?
Kirtle is pronounced /ˈkəːt(ə)l/ (UK).
What is the plural of kirtle?
The plural of kirtle is kirtles.

Words near kirtle in the dictionary

  1. kirtas
  2. Kirti
  3. Kirtland
  4. Kirtland's warbler
  5. Kirtland's warblers
  6. kirtle
  7. Kirtlebridge
  8. kirtled
  9. kirtles
  10. Kirtleton
  11. Kirtley

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: kirtle (page history and authors); kirtle (Urdu Wiktionary) (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-kirtle.wav.

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