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Webster 1913 Edition


Farthingale

Far′thin-gale

,
Noun.
[OE.
vardingale
,
fardingale
, fr. OF.
vertugale
,
verdugade
, F.
vertugade
,
vertugadin
, from Sp.
verdugado
, being named from its hoops, fr.
verdugo
a young shoot of tree, fr.
verde
green, fr. L.
viridis
. See
Verdant
.]
A hoop skirt or hoop petticoat, or other light, elastic material, used to extend the petticoat.
We’ll revel it as bravely as the best, . . .
With ruffs and cuffs, and
farthingales
and things.
Shakespeare

Webster 1828 Edition


Farthingale

F'ARTHINGALE

,
Noun.
[This is a compound word, but it is not easy to analyze it.]
A hoop petticoat; or circles of hoops, formed of whalebone, used to extend the petticoat.

Definition 2024


farthingale

farthingale

English

A girl in a farthingale, 1659

Alternative forms

Noun

farthingale (plural farthingales)

  1. (now historical) A hooped structure in cloth worn to extend the skirt of women's dresses; a hooped petticoat.
    • 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, II.12:
      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 [].
    • 2003, Alexander Chancellor, The Guardian, 3 May 2003:
      In Henry VIII's Great Hall, there were men in doublets and codpieces prancing up and down with women in farthingales.

Synonyms

Translations