quilt
verbEtymology Inherited from Middle English quilte, quylte, from Anglo-Norman quilte and Old French coilte, cuilte (compare French couette), from Latin culcita. Doublet of quoit.
1
To construct a quilt.
2
To construct something, such as clothing, using the same technique.
- Get up, get up for shame, the blooming morne / Upon her wings presents the god unshorne. / See how Aurora throwes her faire / Fresh-quilted colours through the aire; / Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see / The dew bespangling herbe and tree.1648, Robert Herrick, “Corinna’s Going a Maying”, in Hesperides, or The VVorks both Humane & Divine, London: Printed for John Williams, and Francis Eglesfield, […], →OCLC; republished in The Poetical Works of Robert Herrick, London: William Pickering, […], 1825, →OCLC, pages 91–92:
- Two hundred Sempſtreſſes were employed to make me Shirts, and Linen for Bed and Table, all of the ſtrongeft and coarſeſt kind they could get; which, however, they were forced to quilt together in ſeveral Folds, for the thickeſt was ſome degrees finer than Lawn.1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “Of the Inhabitants of Lilliput; […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part I (A Voyage to Lilliput), pages 107–108:
- I am glad, said Mr. Slick, that cussed critter, that schoolmaster, hasn't yet woke up. I'm most afeerd if he had aturned out afore we started, I should have quilted him, for that talk of his last night sticks in my crop considerable hard.1884, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, The Clockmaker, page 113:
- Derived terms
- quilter, quilting, quilting bee, quilting needle
- Related terms
- batting, cotton, pinking shears, sew