Sc., north. dial., and literary. Also 4 lulte, 6 lylt. [ME. lulte (ü), of obscure origin; perh. cogn. w. Du., LG. lul, pipe (cf. LILT-PIPE); Skeat compares Norw. lilla to sing.]
1. trans. † a. To sound (an alarum); to lift up (the voice). Obs. b. To sing cheerfully or merrily. Also, to strike up (a song); to ‘tune up’ (the pipes).
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., A. 1207. Loude alarom vpon launde lulted was þenne.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VII. ix. 88. In ane bowand horne … A feindlych hellis voce scho lyltis schyll [L. Tartaream intendit vocem].
17[?]. Ramsay, Ep. Mr. Gay, Lilt up your pipes, and rise aboon Your Trivia and your moorland tune. Ibid. (1722), Three Bonnets, IV. 192. Lilt up a sang. Ibid. (1725), Gent. Sheph., II. iv. Rosie lilts sweetly the ‘Milking the ewes.’ Ibid., IV. i. Weel liltet, Bauldy, that’s a dainty sang. Ibid., V. iii. What shepherd’s whistle winna lilt the spring?
1847. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights, II. vii. 145. She … tripped merrily on, lilting a tune to supply the lack of conversation.
1878. Sarah Tytler, Scotch Firs, I. 135–6. A verse of an old song lilted in a clear shrill voice.
1883. G. C. Davies, Norfolk Broads & Rivers, vi. (1884), 47. Reed-wrens lilting some sweet fragment of song.
2. intr. To sing cheerfully or merrily; to sing with a lilt or merry ‘swing.’
1786. Burns, Ordination, iii. Mak haste an’ turn king David owre, An’ lilt wi’ holy clangor.
1816. Scott, Antiq., xxii. Jenny, whose shrill voice I have heard this half hour lilting in the Tartarean regions of the kitchen.
1842. S. Lover, Handy Andy, xviii. 152. Murphy, who presided in the cart full of fiddlers like a leader in an orchestra … shouted, ‘Now … rasp and lilt away, boys!’
1901. [D. S. Meldrum], in Blackw. Mag., July, 24/1. The whistle changed into a voice, which came lilting up the den very sweetly.
3. north. dial. ‘To move with a lively action’ (Dickinson & Prevost, Cumbld. Gloss., 1899).
1834. Wordsw., Redbreast, 70. Whether the bird flit here or there, O’er table lilt, or perch on chair.
1847. Halliwell, Lilt, to jerk or spring; to do anything cleverly or quickly. North.
4. To lilt it out (Sc.): to toss off one’s liquor.
1721. Ramsay, Up in Air, iv. Tilt it, lads, and lilt it out.
