jilt

Contracted from Scots jillet (“a giddy girl, a jill-flirt”).

• IPA^(key): /dʒɪlt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

  Rhymes: -ɪlt

jilt (plural jilts)

1. A woman who jilts a lover.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Otway to this entry?)

jilt (third-person singular simple present jilts, present participle jilting, simple past and past participle jilted)

1. (transitive) To cast off capriciously or unfeelingly, as a lover; to deceive in love.
   • (Can we date this quote?) John Locke

     Tell a man passionately in love, that he is jilted; bring a score of witnesses of the falsehood of his mistress, it is ten to one but three kind words of hers shall invalidate all their testimonies.

   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 8, in The Celebrity:

     The humor of my proposition appealed more strongly to Miss Trevor than I had looked for, and from that time forward she became her old self again; for, even after she had conquered her love for the Celebrity, the mortification of having been jilted by him remained.

Borrowed from Arabic جِلْد‎ (jild, “skin, hide”).

jilt (definite accusative ?, plural ?)

1. skin