farthingale

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English

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A girl in a farthingale, 1659

Alternative forms

Etymology

Hobson-Jobson of earlier forms vardingale, etc., borrowed from Middle French verdugale, from Spanish verdugado, from verdugo (rod).

Pronunciation

Noun

farthingale (plural farthingales)

  1. (historical) A hooped structure in cloth worn to extend the skirt of women's dresses; a hooped petticoat.
    Synonym: hoop skirt
    • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes , book II, London: Val Simmes for Edward Blount , →OCLC:
      women [] make trunk-sleeves of wyre and whale-bone bodies, backes of lathes, and stiffe bumbasted verdugals, and to the open-view of all men paint and embellish themselves with counterfeit and borrowed beauties [].
    • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 4:
      As I entered the room, the fire from the large square stove, where the logs were burning lustily, threw a red, flickering light through the wide-open door over the room, which was very deep, and furnished in the old style with high-backed Russia leather chairs, and one of those settees which were intended for farthingales and straight up-and-down positions.
    • 2003 May 3, Alexander Chancellor, The Guardian:
      In Henry VIII's Great Hall, there were men in doublets and codpieces prancing up and down with women in farthingales.

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