"Lilt" describes the particular musical quality of a voice or tune that rises and falls with natural grace, and it is itself a word with lilt. It appears in Scots poetry both as subject and quality, describing the music of speech, song, and landscape. Scottish verse is often praised for its lilt, the natural rhythm that comes from composing in or near the spoken vernacular. The word embodies an ideal of poetry as song, celebrating the moment when language becomes music without losing its meaning.

Lilt is one of the most musical words in Scots, and its presence in a poem is almost always a signal about sound and rhythm. A "lilting" voice or tune has that particular quality of light, bouncing musicality that characterises much Scots folk music — the pentatonic scales, the dance rhythms, the way melody seems to lift and float. In verse, "lilt" can describe either the sound of song or the movement quality that sound creates in the listener. For students studying the oral and musical dimensions of Scottish poetry — the connection between lyric verse and song tradition — "lilt" is a key term. It also appears in the characterisation of speech: a speaker with a "lilt" has music in their voice.