Word.ws English Dictionary

lilting

/ˈlɪltɪŋ/

lilting adjective: having a lilt; with energy, spirit and sprightliness; lively and cheerful. Also the present participle and gerund of lilt.

Adjective

lilting (not comparable)

  1. Having a lilt; with energy, spirit and sprightliness; lively and cheerful.

Noun

lilting (countable and uncountable, plural liltings)

  1. A type of lively singing without any musical accompaniment, where the tune itself is sung, often to nonsense syllables.
    • Anthology of Music and Dance of the Americas, The JVC/Smithsonian Folkways, Vol 1, Canada and the United States: Secular Traditions.
      Especially welcome in this survey are two examples of turlute, or lilting. In communities where musical instruments were not available, turlute was a common dance...

Also used as

lilting is also the present participle and gerund of lilt.

Forms of lilting

pluralliltings

Words formed from lilting

Phrases with lilting

Words that rhyme with lilting

Questions about lilting

What does lilting mean?
Lilting means having a lilt; with energy, spirit and sprightliness; lively and cheerful.
What part of speech is lilting?
Lilting can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce lilting?
Lilting is pronounced /ˈlɪltɪŋ/.

Words near lilting in the dictionary

  1. lils
  2. lilt
  3. lilt up
  4. lilted
  5. lilted up
  6. lilting
  7. lilting up
  8. liltingly
  9. liltingness
  10. liltings
  11. lilts

Source and license

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