What is "bodices"

Usage examples of "bodices".

Their dresses fitted their figures, and were trimmed with fur and stiffened with whalebones, so they went into the next room, and came back in white bodices and short dimity petticoats, laughing at the slightness of their attire.

I took off my coat, and they were obliged to unlace their dresses, the bodices of which were lined with fur.

This made them gayer than ever, for they had not noticed that their unlaced bodices and short petticoats let me see almost everything.