Word.ws English Dictionary

kirtles

kirtles is the plural of kirtle.

kirtles is the third-person singular simple present indicative of kirtle.

Meaning of kirtle

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
  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
  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

See all 4 meanings of kirtle

Questions about kirtles

What is kirtles the plural of?
Kirtles is the plural of kirtle.

Words near kirtles in the dictionary

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

Source and license

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