Crossword clues for petticoat
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Petticoat \Pet"ti*coat\, n. (Zo["o]l.) [Petty + coat.] A loose under-garment worn by women, and covering the body below the waist.
Petticoat government, government by women, whether in politics or domestic affairs. [Colloq.]
Petticoat pipe (Locomotives), a short, flaring pipe surrounding the blast nozzle in the smoke box, to equalize the draft.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
early 15c., pety coote, literally "a small coat," from petty + coat (n.). Originally a padded coat worn by men under armor, applied mid-15c. to a garment worn by women and young children. By 1590s, the typical feminine garment, hence a symbol of female sex or character.Men declare that the petticoatless female has unsexed herself and has left her modesty behind. ["Godey's Magazine," April 1896]
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context historical English) A tight, usually padded undercoat worn by men over a shirt and under the doublet. 2 (context historical English) A woman's undercoat, worn to be displayed beneath an open gown. 3 (context archaic or historical English) A type of ornamental skirt or underskirt, often displayed below a dress; chiefly in plural, designating a woman's skirts collectively. 4 A light woman's undergarment worn under a dress or skirt, and hanging either from the shoulders or (now especially) from the waist; a kind of slip, worn to make the skirt fuller, or for extra warmth.
WordNet
n. undergarment worn under a skirt [syn: half-slip, underskirt]
Wikipedia
A petticoat or underskirt is an article of clothing; specifically an undergarment to be worn under a skirt or a dress. The petticoat is a separate garment hanging from the waist (unlike the chemise).
In historical contexts (sixteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries), petticoat refers to any separate skirt worn with a gown, bedgown, bodice or jacket; these petticoats are not, strictly speaking, underwear as they were made to be seen. In both historical and modern contexts, petticoat refers to skirt-like undergarments worn for warmth or to give the skirt or dress the desired fashionable shape. In this context a petticoat may be called a waist slip or underskirt (UK) or half slip (US), with petticoat restricted to extremely full garments. Petticoat can also refer to a full-length slip in the UK, although this usage is somewhat old-fashioned.
Petticoat is the standard name in English for any underskirt worn as part of non-Western clothing such as the lehenga with the sari.
Usage examples of "petticoat".
Caira would have her skirt sewn to show petticoats to the middle of her thigh or higher had Mistress Anan allowed it, but the innkeeper looked after her serving women almost as closely as she did her daughters.
The barrers in Petticoat Lane, iron wheels sounding like tumbling coal on the street stones.
Perhaps that was the reason why, before she went to bed, she took a good look at it, and after taking off her straight, beltless, calico gown she even tried the effect of it, thrust in the stiff waistband of her petticoat, with the jeweled hilt displayed, and thought it looked charming--as indeed it did.
Her grey dress was turned up in front over a crimson moreen petticoat.
With her blowing skirts and froth of lacy petticoats, and her ruffled pantalettes showing, and her sweet little crook with its pretty bow tied on it?
She felt him at her back while her gown, petticoats, pantalettes, and corset fell to the floor.
But after he lifted the gown over her head, she scurried away, facing him in corset, pantalettes, and petticoat.
He had the gown undone, her corset beneath it, even the ties to her pantalettes and petticoats.
Amelia Bloomer, a postmistress in a small town in New York State, developed the bloomer, women activists adopted it in place of the old whale-boned bodice, the corsets and petticoats.
Her high-necked, long-sleeved dress was of black sarsenet with an empire waist and wide skirts over several layers of petticoats that gave her a ludicrous appearance of width, not helped by her tendency toward plumpness.
Vatican, suffer the little children to come unto me, and only when they left him half dead on the garbage heap in the public market did he get up out of the hammock waving the birds out of the way with his hands, appear in the hearing room waving away the cobwebs of mourning with the black armband and his eyes puffy from poor sleep, and then he gave orders for the nuncio to be placed on a life raft with provisions for three days and they cast him adrift on the lane that cruise ships took to Europe so that the whole world will know what happens to foreigners who lift their hands against the majesty of the nation, and the Pope will learn now and forever that he may be Pope in Rome with his ring on his finger sitting on his golden throne, but here I am what I am, God damn it, them and their shitty petticoats.
She stared in wonder as the suit draped itself over the back of a chair, the blouse followed, and the appropriate underskirts, petticoats, and underthings followed it.
Perhaps because she was unencumbered by petticoat or buttoned bodice or long overskirt tied back at the sides or buckle shoes with light cotton stockings, in short because she was not dressed as I was, even in my unpreparedness for the street, she was at my side in a few jerky moves before I was even five steps closer to the door.
He ran into Alkides, the mercenary artilleryman, with a strip of blue cloth that seemed to have come from a bedspread and a strip of red from the bottom of a petticoat.
They only answered that girls were not allowed to take such a liberty, as they wore petticoats on purpose to conceal their legs.