kilt
KILT · noun
Origin
Kilt comes from Middle English kilten, meaning "to tuck up, gird," which seems to trace back through North Germanic to Old Norse kelta or kjalta, meaning "skirt" or "lap."
This is Curio: one word's origin story, every morning. No feed, no backlog.
One short email each morning. Free; stop anytime. See a sample →
Journey
The word started as a verb describing the action of gathering and tucking fabric up around the body, and over time settled into the noun naming the garment itself.
Related words
Some trace the Old Norse root further back to a Proto-Germanic word for "womb," which would make kilt a distant relative of the English word child.