English

Noun

doublet ‎(plural doublets)

1. A man’s close-fitting jacket, with or without sleeves. Men in Europe wore doublets from the 1400s to the 1600s.
2. A pair of two similar or equal things; couple.
3. (linguistics) One of two or more different words in a language derived from the same origin but coming by different routes (e.g., toucher and toquer in French or yard and garden in English).
4. (literature) In textual criticism, two different narrative accounts of the same actual event.
5. (lapidary) An imitation gem made of two pieces of glass or crystal with a layer of color between them.
6. (printing, US) A word or phrase set a second time by mistake.
7. (quantum mechanics) A quantum state of a system with a spin of 1/2, such that there are two allowed values of the spin component, -1/2 and +1/2.
8. (computing) A word (or rather, a halfword) consisting of two bytes
9. (botany) A very small flowering plant, Dimeresia howellii
10. A word ladder puzzle.
11. An arrangement of two lenses for a microscope, designed to correct spherical aberration and chromatic dispersion, thus rendering the image of an object more clear and distinct.
    • 1855, Hermann Schacht, Frederick Currey, The Microscope

      The doublet generally used is that invented by Dr. Wollaston, and consists of two plano-convex lenses placed with their convex sides towards the eye […]

12. Either of two dice, each of which, when thrown, has the same number of spots on the face lying uppermost.

    to throw doublets

13. (uncountable) A game somewhat like backgammon.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Halliwell to this entry?)

Quotations

jacket

• 1602 : Hamlet by William Shakespeare, act 2 scene 1 line 75

  Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced,

• 1819, Washington Irving, The Sketch Book, Rip Van Winkle:

  He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten countenance; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with roses in them.

Translations

See also

• homolog
• pair
• twin
• twinling