Also 8 kylte. [app. of Scand. origin: cf. Da. kilte (also kilte op) to tuck up, Sw. (dial.) kilta to swathe, swaddle; ON. had kilting, kjalta skirt, lap.]
1. trans. To gird up; to tuck up (the skirts) round the body. Also with up.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter lxiv. 7 [lxv. 6]. Graythand hilles in þi vertu kiltid in powere [accinctus potentia].
1483. Cath. Angl., 203/1. To kylte,… suffercinare, succingere.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, I. vi. 27. Venus … With … Hir skirt kiltit till hir bair kne.
1535. Lyndesay, Satyre, 1380. Then help me for to kilt my clais.
a. 1724. in Ramsay, Tea-table Misc. (1733), II. 144. Come kilt up ye’r coats And let us to Edinburgh go.
1792. Burns, Braw Lads Galla Water, iii. I’ll kilt my coats aboon my knee, And follow my love thro’ the water.
1853. Reade, Chr. Johnstone, ii. 25. Of their petticoats, the outer one was kilted or gathered up towards the front.
2. To fasten or tie up; to pull or hoist up; to ‘string up,’ to hang.
1697. W. Cleland, Poems, 30 (Jam.). Their bare preaching now Makes the thrush-bush keep the cow, Better than Scots or English kings Could do by kilting them [the thieves] with strings.
1810. Cock, Simple Strains, 69 (Jam.). Many ane she’s kiltet up Syne set them fairly on their doup.
1828. Scott, Jrnl., 20 Feb. Our ancestors brought the country to order by kilting thieves and banditti with strings.
3. intr. To go lightly and expeditiously (i.e., as with the loins girded).
1816. Scott, Bl. Dwarf, xvii. He … maun kilt awa’ wi’ ae bonny lass in the morning, and another at night,… but if he disna kilt himself out o’ the country, I’se kilt him wi’ a tow.
1894. ‘Ian Maclaren,’ Bonnie Brier Busk, IV. iii. 150. Kiltin’ up the braes.
4. trans. To gather in vertical pleats, fastened at the top and free at the bottom, as in a kilt.
1887. J. Ashby-Sterry, Lazy Minstrel (1892), 171. The skirt is of flannel most cunningly kilted.
