Also 8 quelt, kelt. [f. KILT v.] A part of the modern Highland dress, consisting of a skirt or petticoat reaching from the waist to the knee: it is usually made of tartan cloth, and is deeply plaited round the back and sides; hence, any similar article of dress worn in other countries.
c. 1730. Burt, Lett. N. Scotl., xxii. (1754), II. 185. Those among them who travel on Foot … vary it [the Trowze] into the Quelt … a small Part of the Plaid is set in Folds and girt round the Waste to make of it a short Petticoat that reaches half Way down the Thigh.
1746. Act 19–21 Geo. II., c. 39 § 17. The … philebeg or little kilt.
1771. Smollett, Humph. Cl., 3 Sept. His piper … has a right to wear the kilt, or ancient Highland dress, with the purse, pistol, and durk.
1771. Pennant, Tour Scot. (1790), I. 211. The feil beag, i. e. little plaid, also called kelt … is a modern substitute for the lower part of the plaid.
1814. Scott, Wav., xvi. The short kilt, or petticoat, showed his sinewy and clean-made limbs.
1850. R. G. Cumming, Hunter’s Life S. Afr. (ed. 2), I. 231. The dress of the [Bechuana] women consists of a kaross depending from the shoulders, and a short kilt formed of the skin of the pallah.
1874. Boutell, Arms & Arm., viii. 147. Thus was formed a species of kilt of armour, or iron petticoat.
