Definify.com
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
With ruffs and cuffs, and
farthingales
and things. Shakespeare
Webster 1828 Edition
Farthingale
F'ARTHINGALE
,Noun.
A hoop petticoat; or circles of hoops, formed of whalebone, used to extend the petticoat.
Definition 2024
farthingale
farthingale
English
Alternative forms
Noun
farthingale (plural farthingales)
- (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.
- 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, II.12: