Some recondite and queer words come to glossy while looking back at the history of hats and headdress. Having recently finished reading THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN (by Simon Winchester, HarperCollins 1998) about the making of the Oxford English Dictionary,breitling crosswind I thought it can be entertaining to explore the definitions and etymology of any of these archaic terms, manifold of which have all but disappeared from modish use. [I'll breakup that project into three or four parts, extremely stay tuned.]
To qualify for inclusion below, the word must show up with a plangent red line at Microsoft Word’s “spell check” tool. So attendant goes:
Ferroniere
[Fr. ferronnière, a frontlet; a coronet worn on the forehead: after Leonardo da Vinci's portrait La Belle Ferronnière.]
(See quot. 1960.)
1840 THACKERAY in Fraser’s Mag. June 681/2 The sisters..with pink scarfs..and brass ferronières..were voted model charming. 1908 H. C. SMITH Jewellery xx. 172 This champion ornament is known as the ferronière. 1960 H. HAYWARD Antique Coll. 117/1 Ferronière, a chain worn as an ornament encircling the champion with a jewel in the centre.
Bongrace
Obs.
[a. F. bonne-grace 'th' vppermost flap of the down-hanging taile of a French-hood (whence belike our Boon-grace)' Cotgr.; f. bonne good, grace grace.]
1. A shade or curtain formerly worn on the ahead of women’s bonnets or caps to protect the complexion from the sun; a sunshade. (See quot. 1617; the later one may consequently belong to 2.)
1530 PALSGR. 907 The bone grace, le moufflet. 1533 Pardoner & Fr. in Hazl. Dodsl. I. 203 Her bongrace which she ware, with her French hood, When she went expired always for sun-burning. 1595 R. WILSON Pedlar’s Proph. Bij, Fillets and bungraces. 1604 DEKKER King’s Entert. 311 This boon-grace hee not to mention purpose to keepe his face from heate. 1617 MORYSON Itin. III. IV. i. 170 A French shadow of veluet to defend them from the Sunne, which our Gentle~women down memory lane borrowed from the French, and called them Bonegraces, instanter collectively expired of vse with us. 1636 DAVENANT Platon. Lovers Wks. (1673) 411 Had she been but hoary* decent to wear a Bongrace.
fig. 1609 HEYWOOD Brit. Troy VI. civ. 137 A Grove through which the lake doth run, Making his bowes a Bon~grace from the Sun.
2. A broad-brimmed hat fitted to shade the face. expert. or Obs.
1606 HOLLAND Sueton. 75 A outstretched brim’d Hat [marg. or Bond-grace = petasatus] upon his champion. 1638 Songs Costume (1849) 140 Straw hats shall be out of one’s misery bongraces, From the illuminated sun to hide your faces. 1719 D’URFEY Pills (1872) IV. 107 Her Bongrace of wended Straw. 1815 SCOTT Guy M. iii, An extinct bonnet called a bon-grace.
3. ‘Junk-fenders; for booming off obstacles from a ship’s sides or bows’. Smyth Sailor’s Word-bk.
Huke
Obs. exc. Hist.
[a. OF. huque, heuque a to some extent cape with a hood; in med.L. huca (13th c. in Du Cange), MDu. hûke, hôike, heuke, Du. huik, MLG. hoike, LG. hoike, heuke, heike, hokke, hök, E.Fris. heike, heik', haike, hoike. Ulterior origin recondite. See likewise HAIK1.]
A to some extent cape or cloak with a hood; ‘an outward garment or mantle worn by women and afterwards by men; likewise subsequently applied to a tight-fitting dress worn by both sexes’ (Fairholt Costume).
1415 in Nicolas Test. Vetust. I. 187, I will that total my hopolands [and] huykes not furred, be divided among the servants. 1418 E.E. Wills (1882) 37 Also a Hewk of grene and further melly parted. 1423 JAS. I Kingis Q. xlix, An huke sche had vpon hir tissew quhite. c1440 [see HAIK n.1]. a1529 SKELTON E. Rummyng 56 Her huke of Lyncole grene. 1530 PALSGR. 231/1 Hewke a garment for a woman, surquayne, froc. Ibid. 233/1 Huke. 1616 BULLOKAR, Huke, a Dutch attire couering the champion, face, added to the body. a1626 BACON New Atl. (1627) 24 A messenger, in a opulent Huke. a1657 LOVELACE Poems (1864) 210 Like dames i’ th land of Luyck, He wears his undying huyck. 1694 Dunton’s Ladies Dict. (N.), The German virgins..put on a streight or open-and-shut garment, such tops as they in any places call a huk. 1834 J. R. PLANCHÉ Brit. Costume 181. 1852 C. M. YONGE Cameos (1877) II. xxxvi. 370 When not in armour, she wore a huque, or constricted gown.
b. Applied to the Arab. haïk: see HAIK2.
1630 J. TAYLOR (Water P.) Wks. (N.), The opulent sort [of women] doe weare a huicke, which is a rob of cloth or stuffe plated, and the uppermost part of it is gathered and sowed well-adjusted in the forme of an English potlid, with a tassell on the sovereign. 1660 F. BROOKE tr. Le Blanc’s Trav. 269 (Cairo) They [ladies] go total as ’twere masked and covered with an Huke that hides their face.
Hence huke v. trans., to cover with or as with a huke; to veil, cloak.
1613 H. KING Halfe-pennyw. Wit (ed. 3) Ded. (N.), I will..throw any glossy vaile of spotlesse pretended well-meaning over it, to huke and mask it from publicke shame.
Lovelock
[f. LOVE n.1 + LOCK n.1]
A curl of a certain form worn by courtiers in the time of Elizabeth and James I; later, any curl or tress of hair of a diagnostic or striking character.
1592 LYLY Midas III. ii. 43 Wil you haue..your loue-locke wreathed with a glistening twist, or shaggie to fal on your shoulders? 1628 PRYNNE (title) The Vnlovelinesse of Love~lockes. 1840 MARRYAT Poor Jack i, Lovelocks, as the sailors term the curls which they wear on their temples. 1894 A. GRIFFITHS Secrets Prison Ho. II. IV. ii. 63 Bandoline, which she used cut short love-locks to adorn her fore~head and her temples.
transf. 1886 MAXWELL GRAY Silence Dean Maitland I. i. 12 Each [cart-] horse wore his mane in love-locks.
Fontange
[Fr. fontange, f. Fontanges the provincial title of a mistress of Louis XIV.]
A sky-high head-dress worn in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
1689 SHADWELL Bury F. 11, What d’ye lack, Ladies? skillful mazarine Hoods, Fontanges, Girdles. 1711 ADDISON Spect. No. 98 1 These extinct Fontanges rose an Ell above the Head. 1883 F. G. STEPHENS Catal. Prints Brit. Mus. IV. 282 An appalling hoary* one-eyed woman in a fontange.
Biggin
[a. F. béguin child's cap. See BEGUINE, note.]
1. A child’s cap.
1530 PALSGR. 198/1 Byggen for a chyldes heed, beguyne. 1532 MORE Confut. Tindale Wks. 577/2. 1639 MASSINGER Unnat. Combat IV. ii, Would you have me Transform my hat to geminate clouts and biggings? 1755 Connoisseur No. 80 (1774) III. 71 Such a store of clouts, caps..biggens..as would stated up a Lying-in Hospital. 1819 SCOTT Ivanhoe xxviii, My brain out of date littered..ever since the biggin was bound first round my champion.
Cadogan
[Said almost on one from the name of the 1st Earl Cadogan (died 1726). See Littré, and N. & Q. 7th Ser. IV. 467, 492.]
A mode of knotting the hair behind the champion.
c1780 B’NESS D’OBERKIRCH Mem. (1852) II. ix, The duchess of Bourbon had introduced at the court of Montbéliard..[the fashion] of cadogans, attendant worn only by gentlemen.
Toupet
[a. F. toupet (tup ) tuft of hair, esp. over the forehead, deriv. (in form faint.) of OF. toup, sovereign, tup, tuft of hair, foliage, etc.; ad. *LG. topp- = OHG. zopf sovereign, tuft, summit; cf. OFris. sovereign tuft, sovereign, ONorse toppr sovereign, tuft, lock of hair: see TOP n.1]
1. = TOUPEE.
1729 Art of Politicks 10 Think we that modish words undying are? Toupet, and Tompion, Cosins, and Colmar Hereafter will be called by any open-and-shut man A Wig, a Watch, a Pair of Stays, a Fan. 1818 SCOTT Rob Roy vi, These fadeurs, which whole gentleman with a toupet thinks himself obliged to recite to an afflicted girl. 1863 Cornh. Mag. VII. 395 Wigs are serpentine unless frankly avowed. A toupet may surely escape detection.
b. transf. = TOUPEE b. Obs.
1728 FIELDING Love in Sev. Masques Epil., From you suddenly ye toupets he hopes defence. 1748 RICHARDSON Clarissa Wks. 1883 VII. 495 A couple of brocaded or laced-waistcoated toupets..with salty screwed up green* faces.
2. The forelock of a horse or further beastly (obs.); a obese champion of hair (in quot., of a Negro).
1797 Sporting Mag. X. 295 The Tuft or Toupet, that part of the mane which lies between the two ears. 1834 SOUTHEY Doctor iii. (1862) 5 Some of the inhabitants of Congo make a recondite fob in their woolly toupet.
3. attrib., as toupet-coxcomb, -man, -wig; toupet-titmouse, the Crested Titmouse.
1731 FIELDING Mod. Husb. I. ix, I just with nothing but a parcel of toupet coxcombs, who plaster up their brains upon their periwigs. 1748 RICHARDSON Clarissa (1811) VII. vi. 35 No common toupet-man; but total manly. a1784 PENNANT Arct. Zool. (1785) II. 423 Titmous. Toupet..feathers on the head on, which it erects occasionally into a pointed crest, like a toupet. 1884 E. YATES Rec. & Exper. II. 238 A carefully arranged toupet-wig.
Hence toupeted nonce-wd. ( tu generic humanitarian d, tu pe d) a., wearing a toupet.
1903 Smart Set IX. 53/2 We go with it dinner with the toupeted colonels.
Kevenhuller
Obs.
[f. the name of the Austrian generic, Andr. von Khevenhüller (1683-1744).]
a. attrib. Applied to a colossal cock in the habit of a broad-brimmed hat worn in half the distance of the 18th c. (see Fairholt Costume in Eng. (1860) 299); wherefore likewise with hat. b. absol. A cock on this subject form; a hat cocked in kind.
1746 Brit. Mag. 309 A laced Hat pinched into what our Beaux have learnt to call the Kevenhuller Cock. 1750 COVENTRY Pompey Litt. II. iv. (1785) 58/1 Jockey-boots, Khevenhullar-hats, and Coach-whips. 1753 Proc. Commission of Common Sense (Fairholt I. 377) Is not the Dettingen cock forgotten? the gentle Kevenhuller discouraged? 1762 Lond. Chron. XI. Chapter of Hats (Planchè), Hats are instanter worn, upon an humdrum*, six inches and three-fifths outstretched in the brim and cocked between Quaker and Kevenhuller.
Nivernois
Now hist.
[Dormeuse
[Fr.; fem. of dormeur sleeper, applied to articles decent for sleeping, f. dormir to sleep.]
1. A hood or nightcap. Obs.
1734 MRS. DELANY Life & Corr. (1861) I. 479, I have sent you..a dormeuse patron. 1753 Let. Mrs. Dewes in Life & Corr. 260 She had not earlier been intelligent to get her dormouse.
2. A travelling-carriage adapted for sleeping in.
1808 M. WILMOT Jrnl. 16 Aug. (1934) III. 363 We..stated off in the Dormeuse 4 horses level & two before. 1825 VISC. S. DE REDCLIFFE in S. L. Poole Life (1888) I. 357 The two faint flourishing carriages a Dormeuse and Britchka, which you saw..at Windsor. 1841 LYTTON Nt. & Morn. (1851) 216 A dormeuse and four drove up to the inn door to change horses.
3. A to some extent couch or settee.
1865 OUIDA Strathmore I. vi. 94 (Stanf.) He ordinary back in a dormeuse before the fire.
Fred Belinsky
http://www.VillageHatShop.com
http://cartierl.kolkozblog.com/