doily

• doyley, doiley

From Doiley, the name of a 17th-century London draper. The surname is Anglo-Norman, from d’Œuilly, name of several places in Calvados, from Old French oeil (“eye”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈdɔɪli/

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• Rhymes: -ɔɪli

doily (plural doilies)

1. A small ornamental piece of lace or linen or paper used to protect a surface from scratches by hard objects such as vases or bowls; or to decorate a plate of food.
   • 1920, Sinclair Lewis, Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, →OCLC:

     She looked polite, and observed the oiled floors, hard-wood staircase, unused fireplace with tiles which resembled brown linoleum, cut-glass vases standing upon doilies, and the barred, shut, forbidding unit bookcases that were half filled with swashbuckler novels and unread-looking sets of Dickens, Kipling, O. Henry, and Elbert Hubbard.

   • 1956, John Betjeman, “How to Get On in Society”, in Nancy Mitford, editor, Noblesse Oblige, page 159:

     Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys / With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.

2. (Judaism) A similar circular piece of lace worn as a head-covering by some married Jewish women.
3. (obsolete) An old kind of woollen material.

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