Gilt

How to spell gilt

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce gilt

What does gilt mean?

1. adjectiveCovered thinly with gold or a gold-coloured finish.
2. nounA British government bond regarded as a low-risk investment.

Gilt in a sentence

• adjective

  The antique mirror had an ornate gilt frame.

• noun

  The pension fund moved most of its money into gilt holdings for safety.

• adjective

  The dealer warned that the cheap gilt lettering would flake within a year.

• noun

  Rising interest rates pushed the yield on every ten-year gilt higher.

Where does gilt come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word began as the past participle of the Old English verb gyldan, meaning 'to cover with gold', a verb built directly on gold itself and shared across the Germanic languages. By the late Middle Ages the participle form 'gilt' had hardened into an adjective and noun describing anything coated with a thin layer of gold leaf, while the verb settled on the spelling 'gild'. The financial sense is much later: in nineteenth-century Britain the safest government bonds were nicknamed 'gilt-edged' because their certificates literally carried gilded edges, and 'gilts' became shorthand for such securities. The unrelated farming sense, a young female pig, comes from a separate Old Norse word gylta and only happens to be spelled the same way. The whole family ties straight back to gold, which is the most useful thing to remember when you are tempted to spell it like its homophone 'guilt', the feeling of having done wrong.

How the word is built

• gild (to cover with gold, from Old English gyldan)
• -t (archaic past-participle ending)

Words that sound like gilt

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• guilt: The fact of having committed an offence, or the uncomfortable feeling of having done wrong.