[f. LILT v. + -ING1.] The action of LILT v.; cheerful or merry singing.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills, VI. 350. Let’s awa’ to the Wedding, For there will be Lilting there.
c. 1750. Miss Eliot, Song, Flowers of Forest, i. I’ve heard the lilting at our yowe-milking, Lasses a lilting before the dawn of day.
Hence † Lilting-horn, a kind of trumpet. Obs.
c. 1384. Chaucer, H. Fame, III. 133 (Fairfax MS.). And many flowte and liltyng horne [v.rr. lytelyng, lyltyng, litelynge].
14[?]. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 593/21. Lituus, a lyltynghorn [printed lylkynghorn].
