circlet

English

Etymology

From Middle French cerclet, diminutive of cercle.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɜː(ɹ)klət/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

Noun

circlet (plural circlets)

1. A small circle.
2. A ring (typically of gold or silver) worn as an ornament on the head.
   • 1913 January–May, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Gods of Mars”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as “Thuvia”, in The Gods of Mars, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg & Co., 1918 September, →OCLC, page 69:

     He wore in addition to his leathern trappings and jewelled ornaments a great circlet of gold about his brow in the exact centre of which was set an immense stone, the exact counterpart of that which I had seen upon the breast of the little old man at the atmosphere plant nearly twenty years before.

3. A crown without arches or a covering.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 5:

     Her faire lockes in rich circlet be enrold.

4. A round body; an orb.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book V”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC:

     Fairest of stars […] that crown'st the smiling morn / With thy bright circlet.

Translations

Further reading

• circlet on Wikipedia.Wikipedia