kirtle

The back of a kirtle (c. 4th century C.E., sense 1) from Thorsberg moor, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, on display in the Schleswig-Holsteinisches Landesmuseum in Gottorf Castle

Jonathan Richardson, Lady Anne Cavendish (daughter of Elihu Yale?) (c. 1725), collection of the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. The portrait depicts a woman wearing the fur-lined kirtle (sense 3) of a peeress’s coronation robes, and so is thought unlikely to be Anne, the daughter of Elihu Yale, since her husband was not a peer.

From Middle English kirtel, from Old English cyrtel, cognate with Old Norse kyrtill (“tunic”) (whence Icelandic kyrtill, Danish kjortel (“gown, tunic”), Swedish kjortel (“petticoat, skirt”)), from Old Norse *kurtil-, supposedly a diminutive of *kurt-, from Latin curtus (“short, shortened”). Compare German Kittel.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkəːt(ə)l/, /ˈkɜː(ɹ)-/

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkɚt(ə)l/, /-ɾ(ə)l/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)təl
• Hyphenation: kir‧tle

kirtle (plural kirtles)

1. A knee-length tunic.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 31, pages 53–54:

     All in a kirtle of diſcolourd ſay / He clothed was, ypaynted full of eies; / And in his boſome ſecretly there lay / An hatefull Snake, the which his taile vptyes / In many folds, and mortall ſting implyes.

   • 1816, Ben Jonson, “Cynthia’s Revels: Or, The Fountain of Self-love”, in W[illiam] Gifford, editor, The Works of Ben Jonson, in Nine Volumes. With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir, by W. Gifford, Esq., volume II (Containing Every Man Out of His Humour. Cynthia's Revels. The Poetaster.), London: Printed for G. and W. Nicol [et al.]; by W[illiam] Bulmer and Co., Cleveland-row, St. James's, →OCLC, act II, scene i, page 260, footnote 5:

     Few words have occasioned such controversy among the commentators on our old plays, as this; and all for want of knowing that it is used in a two-fold sense, sometimes for the jacket merely, and sometimes for the train or upper petticoat attached to it. A full kirtle was always a jacket and petticoat, a half kirtle (a term which frequently occurs) was either the one or the other; but our ancestors, who wrote when this article of dress was every where in use, and when there was little danger of being misunderstood, most commonly contented themselves with the simple term, (kirtle,) leaving the sense to be gathered from the context.

   • 1832, “the original editor” [pseudonym; John Wade], “Church of England”, in The Extraordinary Black Book: An Exposition of Abuses in Church and State, Courts of Law, Representation, Municipal and Corporate Bodies; with a Précis of the House of Commons, Past, Present, and to Come, new edition, London: Published by Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, →OCLC, section III (Sinecurism.—Non-residence.—Pluralities.—Church Discipline), page 33:

     Many of the church dignitaries are distinguishable by peculiarities of dress, as the shovel hat and kirtle.

   • 1842, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Quadroon Girl”, in Voices of the Night; and Other Poems, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, published 1852, →OCLC, page 98:

     Her eyes were large, and full of light, / Her arms and neck were bare; / No garment she wore save a kirtle bright, / And her own long, raven hair.

2. A short jacket.
   • [1721, N[athan] Bailey, “KIRTLE”, in An Universal Etymological English Dictionary: […], London: […] E. Bell, J. Darby, […], →OCLC, column 1:

     KIRTLE, […] a Sort of ſhort Jacket.]

   • 1816, Ben Jonson, “Cynthia’s Revels: Or, The Fountain of Self-love”, in W[illiam] Gifford, editor, The Works of Ben Jonson, in Nine Volumes. With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir, by W. Gifford, Esq., volume II (Containing Every Man Out of His Humour. Cynthia's Revels. The Poetaster.), London: Printed for G. and W. Nicol [et al.]; by W[illiam] Bulmer and Co., Cleveland-row, St. James's, →OCLC, act II, scene i, page 260, footnote 5:

     A man's jacket was also called a kirtle.

3. A woman's gown; a woman's outer petticoat or skirt.
   • 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Avgvst”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC; reprinted as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, The Shepheardes Calender […], London: John C. Nimmo, […], 1890, →OCLC:

     Per[igot] VVell decked in a frocke of gray, / Wil[ly] hey ho, gray is greet, / Per. And in a kirtle of green ſay, / [Wil.] the greene is for maydens meet.

   • c. 1587, Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love:

     A cap of flowers, and a kirtle / Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]:

     Dol[l Tearsheet] I loue thee better than I loue thee, ere a ſcuruy yong boy of them all. / Fal[staff] What ſtuffe wilt haue a kirtle of? I ſhall receiue mony a thurſday, ſhalt haue a cap to morrow: […]

   • 1839 January 19, A. C., “English Romantic Ballads. No. VI. The Spanish Lady’s Love.—The Nut-brown Maid.”, in The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, volume VIII, number 436, London: Charles Knight & Co., 22, Ludgate Street, →OCLC, page 19, column 1:

     [Y]ou must cut these fine tresses close by your ears, your rich kirtle close by the knee: you must bear my bow and carry my arrows, ay, and be ready at once to go to the greenwood with one for whose head much gold is offered.

   • 1970, Larry Niven, Ringworld, page 260:

     Around his waist was a kind of kirtle, the skin of some animal.

   • 2013, Katherine L. French, “Genders and Material Culture”, in Judith M[acKenzie] Bennett, Ruth Mazo Karras, editors, The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 199:

     Women, like men, also typically wore three layers of clothing. Women's underclothing consisted of a smock or chemise and hose. Next came a kirtle, a long garment originally with short or no sleeves, worn over the smock, chemise, and hose. Over time, kirtles became increasingly fitted, with ever-lengthening sleeves. Over kirtles, women wore a variety of outer tunics, such as the houppelande, or a sleeveless tabard or pelisse.

• half-kirtle

kirtle (third-person singular simple present kirtles, present participle kirtling, simple past and past participle kirtled)

1. (transitive) To clothe or cover with, or as if with, a kirtle; to hitch up (a long garment) to the length of a kirtle.
   • 1899, Charles Camp Tarelli, “God’s Magic”, in The Spectator, volume 82, London: F. C. Westley, →OCLC, page 521, column 1; reprinted in Frank M[orrison] Pixley, editor, The Argonaut, volume XLVIII, number 1243, San Francisco, Calif.: Argonaut Publishing Company, 1901 January 7, →OCLC, page 6, column 2:

     Eastward the Night / Climbs slow with hooded brows, and languid Day / Kirtles her robe fantastical, and leans / To take the embrace of darkness.

   • 1994, Diana Gabaldon, Voyager (Outlander Series; 3), New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, →OCLC:

     Father Fogen led the way, his skinny shanks a gleaming white as he kirtled his cassock about his thighs. I was obliged to do the same, for the hillside above the house was thick with grass and thorny shrubs that caught at the coarse wool skirts of my borrowed robe.

   • 1999, Mercedes Lackey, editor, Flights of Fantasy (DAW Book Collectors; no. 1141), New York, N.Y.: DAW Books, →ISBN, page 264:

     I didn't kirtle my skirts above my knees. I'm not wearing breeches beneath my habit, though without a doubt they'd be warmer than my stockings.

   • 2007, Chris Holmes, chapter 28, in Blood on the Tartan (Excalibur Book), High Springs, Fla.: Highland Press, →ISBN, page 212:

     Kirtling her skirts for freedom of movement, she accelerated to full speed and headed for the road, hoping to reach the relative safety of the village.

• kirtle on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• kilter