Quote Originally Posted by TheKiltedWonder View Post
So where did the noun come from? A verb "to kilt" meaning "to gird up, to tuck up round the body", as illustrated by Burns himself in 1792 "I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee, And follow my love thro' the water." This verb is classified as "apparently of Scandanavian origin" on account of Danish kilte meaning "to tuck up", ON kilting "skirt".
The Norwegian-Danish Etymological Dictionary lists the origin of the word as kjalta or kelta in Old Norse, which refers to tucking up an apron or a skirt in order to carry something in your lap. From this, the word also came to refer to the lap itself, and is related to the Gothic kilϷei, which means womb. This in turn is related to the Anglo-Saxon cild, the modern English version of which is child. So kilt and child have a common origin.