Crossword clues for negligee
negligee
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
neglige \neg`li*ge"\, negligee \neg`li*gee"\(n[e^]g`l[i^]*zh[=a]"; F. n[asl]`gl[-e]`zh[asl]"), n. [Also spelled neglig['e] and neglig['e]e.][F. n['e]glig['e], fr. n['e]gliger to neglect, L. negligere. See Neglect.]
An easy, unceremonious attire; undress.
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A kind of loose, flowing dressing gown worn by women, usually made of sheer fabric.
Syn: negligee, peignoir.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1756, "a kind of loose gown worn by women," from French négligée, noun use of fem. past participle of négligier "to neglect" (14c.), from Latin neglegere "to disregard, not heed, not trouble oneself about," also "to make light of" (see neglect (v.)). So called in comparison to the elaborate costume of a fully dressed woman of the period. Grose ["Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," 1788] reports it "vulgarly termed a neggledigee." Borrowed again, 1835; the modern sense "semi-transparent, flimsy, lacy dressing gown" is yet another revival, first recorded 1930. It also was used in the U.S. funeral industry mid-20c. for "shroud of a corpse."
Wiktionary
n. (alternative form of négligée English)
WordNet
Wikipedia
The negligee or négligée, from the French: négligé, literally meaning "neglected", known in French as déshabillé, is a form of see-through clothing for women consisting of a sheer usually long dressing gown. It is a form of nightgown intended for wear at night and in the bedroom. It was introduced in France in the 18th century, where it mimicked the heavy head-to-toe style of women's day dresses of the time.
By the 1920s, the negligee began to mimic women's satin single-layer evening dress of the period. The term "negligee" was used on a Royal Doulton run of ceramic figurines in 1927, showing women wearing what appears to be a one-piece knee-length silk or rayon slip, trimmed with lace. Although the evening-dresses style of nightwear made moves towards the modern negligee style—translucent bodices, lace trimming, bows, exemplified in 1941 by a photo of Rita Hayworth in Life—it was only after World War II that nightwear changed from being primarily utilitarian to being primarily sensual or even erotic; the negligee emerged strongly as a form of lingerie.
Modern negligees are often much looser and made of sheer and diaphanous fabrics and trimmed with lace or other fine material, and bows. Multiple layers of fabric are often used. The modern negligee thus perhaps owes more to women's fine bedjackets or bed-capes, and up-market slips than to the nightgown. It spread to a mass market, benefitting from the introduction of cheap synthetic fabrics such as nylon and its finer successors. From the 1940s to the 1970s, the trend was for negligees to become shorter in length (e.g. the babydoll of the 1970s). Negligees made from the 1940s to the 1970s are now collectible vintage items.
In the UK in 2004, negligees accounted for only four percent of women's nightwear sales, women's pyjamas having dominated since the mid-1980s. However, UK negligee sales are said to have been the fastest increasing sector of the market since 1998.
Usage examples of "negligee".
She was in a complete state of negligee, and came in on tiptoe, though if she chose to look towards the bed she might have seen that I was wide awake.
Spencer Howell, fresh from the shower and wearing a pink negligee, stood in the door of her bathroom and brushed her hair, waiting for Lieutenant Colonel Ed Banning to notice her.
When Shaik Tsin thumped the panels of her door, she crushed the note into the bosom of her negligee before answering.
Even the lesbian ones, tremendous favourites around 1880, young girls already undressed and being swooningly embraced and caressed by mature ladies themselves in a pleasing negligee of loosened staylace, are seldom vulgar and rarely dirty.
As Alberta went on into the living - room on her way to the door, she said, Ellen had already started to take off the negligee and was walking toward the bathroom.
Spanish moss from the pillared veranda of an antebellum mansion by an imposing liveried black, the sun gleaming on the strong lineaments of his brow arching disdainfully as a decrepit horse and buggy bearing an aging woman and a handsome intense young man standing to snap his whip imperiously came close for an exchange of unheard words to be pointed scornfully on their way, glimpsed from behind a curtain by a ravishingly beautiful young woman in negligee in their retreat back down the drive.
She swept into the common in her laciest negligee, looking unusually beautiful and desirable, but my mind was too troubled to be seduced.
Renee scowled at him, drawing the semitransparent negligee around her body in a gesture that emphasized what she was purportedly attempting to hide.
Miss MacTavish: This is to notify you that payment on your account for three black silk negligees, Size 12, and four pairs Upthrust brassieres, 107 cm.
I examined her to see whether she was prettier in her new dress or in the morning's negligee, and I decided in favour of the latter.
When Hewell and Witherspoon come ankling by be at the doorway, wide-eyed, clutching your negligee or whatever and asking the usual daft questions appropriate to such occasions.
Something down the street caught my eye, though, a lacy yellow negligee in a window display, the kind of short babydoll nightie that my mother used to wear.
As soon as the bedroom light went out, I got up and went to my dresser, pulling out one of my mother’s nightgowns, a skimpy babydoll negligee, and some cosmetics and perfume I had swiped from her vanity while Ramon was at work.
Scarlett, peering at her sisters in the dim flaring light, saw that Carreen wore a nightgown, clean but in tatters, and Suellen lay wrapped in an old negligee, a brown linen garment heavy with tagging ends of Irish lace.
McGowan was wearing a frothy pink negligee and tiny matching bikini pants.