Also 7 gilt. [A ‘new cant word’ in 1674; origin not recorded; connection with GILLOT, or JILT sb. in sense 1, is doubtful.]
1. trans. To deceive after holding out hopes in love; to cast off (a lover) capriciously; to be faithless to; to play the jilt towards. Orig. said only of a woman; in later use also of a man.
1673. [see JILTING below].
1674. Blount, Glossogr. (ed. 4). Jilt, is a new canting word, signifying to deceive and defeat ones expectation, more especially in the point of Amours.
1675. Wycherley, Country Wife, I. i. Wks. (Rtldg.), 71/2. He can no more think the men laugh at him than that women jilt him.
1690. Locke, Hum. Und., IV. xx. (1695), 403. Tell a Man, passionately in Love, that he is gilted; bring a score of Witnesses of the Falshood of his Mistress, ’tis ten to one but three kind Words of hers shall invalidate all their Testimonies.
1747. Wesley, Wks. (1872), II. 78. You shortly after jilted the younger, and married the elder sister.
1816. Scott, Old Mort., xxxviii. Your mistress seems much disposed to jilt you.
1865. Spectator, 11 Feb., 153. If the man jilts the woman he is fined,… as men are liable to be fined on conviction of open treason.
b. absol. or intr. To play the jilt.
1696. Congreve, Epil. to Southerne’s Oroonoko. She might have learnt to cuckold, jilt, and sham, Had Covent Garden been in Surinam.
a. 1736. Yalden, Poet. Wks. (1833), 65.
| The nymph, when she betrays, disdains your guilt, | |
| And, by such falsehood taught, she learns to jilt. |
1739. Matrimony, 3. Where have you [wife] been Jilting all the Day?
2. gen. To deceive, cheat, trick, delude (obs.); to cheat (one’s) expectation; to prove false or faithless to (any one); to ‘throw over’ or discard for another. (Now chiefly fig. from 1.)
1660. No Droll but a Rational Account, 8. Treacherous tell-tales, that frequent clubs and Coffee-houses, whose chief business is to jilt others into discourse.
a. 1700. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Hedge-Tavern, a jilting sharping tavern.
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia, VIII. iii. He is waiting for me at the inn: however,… if you will give me some tea here, I shall certainly jilt him.
1851. Thackeray, Eng. Hum., iv. 181. But Fortune shook her swift wings and jilted him too.
Hence Jilted ppl. a., Jilting vbl. sb. and ppl. a.; also Jiltee, one who is or has been jilted; Jilter, one who jilts, a jilt.
1673. Dryden, 1st Pt. Marr. à la Mode, IV. i[i]. It [masquerading] was invented first by some jealous Lover, to discover the Haunts of his Jilting Mistress.
1708. Brit. Apollo, No. 99. 3/2. Those cruel Jilters.
1833. L. Ritchie, Wand. by Loire, 141. Is it necessary … that you insult the jilted suitor?
1894. Pall Mall Mag., July, 397. It is difficult to believe that … the jilter, not the jiltee, is to be admired—even pitied.
