Defining a kilt

[Galant]

Decided to check some dictionary sources for 'kilt', here's what I found:

Dictionary.com - 1. A knee-length skirt with deep pleats, usually of a tartan wool, worn as part of the dress for men in the Scottish Highlands.
2. A similar skirt worn by women, girls, and boys.


tr.v. kilt·ed, kilt·ing, kilts

To tuck up (something) around the body.

Merriam-Webster - Function: noun
1 : a knee-length pleated skirt usually of tartan worn by men in Scotland and by Scottish regiments in the British armies
2 : a garment that resembles a Scottish kilt

Merriam-Webster - Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, of Scandinavian origin; akin to Old Norse kjalta lap, fold of a gathered skirt
transitive senses
1 chiefly dialect : to tuck up (as a skirt)
2 : to equip with a kilt
intransitive senses : to move nimbly

Bartleby - NOUN: 1. A knee-length skirt with deep pleats, usually of a tartan wool, worn as part of the dress for men in the Scottish Highlands. 2. A similar skirt worn by women, girls, and boys.
TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: kilt·ed, kilt·ing, kilts
To tuck up (something) around the body.
ETYMOLOGY: From kilt, to tuck up, from Middle English kilten, of Scandinavian origin.

[beerbecue]

So it seems all of these sources plagiarized each other??

[Galant]

I'd like to hear what the OED has to say but the online version is subscription only. Maybe also the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Actually, the "definition" of a kilt is something that people have been struggling with of late. Reference what I said in the "casual kilt" thread about the flux of cheap Pakistani kilts flooding into the UK market lately.

Folks in Scotland, like the STA, have been stuggling with an attempted definition of just what is and isn't a kilt.

Now most people in the world of Highland Dress, either as producers, consumers, scholars, what have you, know what a kilt is and can easily tell the difference between kilt and a skirt, or another cheap imitation.

The problem is in attempting to put a definition into words. How do you define it, as to exclude imitators?

You can't go by yardage. Some of the earliest tailored military kilts contained barely 3.5 yards of cloth, for goodness sake! Are you going to say that the Highland Regiments of 1794 were wearing skirts? Of course not!

You can't go by the style of pleating. Again, the very first kilts were box pleated. Modern kilts are knife pleated. And you also had styles in the nineteenth century that combined the two.

You can't go by whether or not is made of tartan, for people have worn solid colored kilts since at least the seventeenth century. Tweed kilts were popular in the nineteenth century.

You can't go by the country of origin. I know hand weavers of tartan cloth in the US that do just as good a job as anyone in the UK. And likewise, there are kiltmakers here who are expert, and no one doubts that the products they make are not true kilts because of the location they were made.

So how do you "define" a kilt??? If you come up with something, let me know!

Aye,
Matt

[Avonlea22]

A kilt is a skirt worn by men. If a women is wearing (a longer version)of it, it's a kilt skirt. If it's a female piper, then it's a kilt being worn by a female, just like crossdressers wear skirts. I'm not saying female pipers are crossdressers, btw, for it is a uniform requirement. I have no problem with it being called a skirt, by definition.

[Blu (Ontario)]

...So how do you "define" a kilt??? If you come up with something, let me know!
Aye,
Matt

KILT...

1. A wrap style mid length wool skirt originally of tartan cloth designed for men in Scotland. Later versions also made of various cloth types and colors worn by men and also adapted as womens attire.
2. A generalized term loosely used to describe pleated skirts of various fabrics and lengths designed as womens attire.
3. An FM radio station in Houston, Texas catering to people with a taste for popular country style music.

[GMan]

My definition of the kilt, although not of learned sources, boils down to this; a garment worn for comfort, to express who I am with my heritage and myself as a human being.

[bear]

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet."
Romeo and Juliet

"What's in a name? That which we call a kilt
By any other word would swing a pleat."
Bear

[Casey]

To me, we are men wearing a man's garment. Period.

One can debate to one's heart's desire but this does not change.

[Riverkilt]

Laddie, 'tis a kilt if I say its a kilt!

Ron