farthingale

English

A girl in a farthingale, 1659

Alternative forms

• fardingale, vardingale, verdingall, verdugal

Etymology

Hobson-Jobson of earlier forms vardingale, etc., borrowed from Middle French verdugale, from Spanish verdugado, from verdugo (“rod”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɑːðɪŋɡeɪl/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɑɹðɪŋɡeɪl/
• Hyphenation: far‧thin‧gale

Noun

farthingale (plural farthingales)

1. (historical) A hooped structure in cloth worn to extend the skirt of women's dresses; a hooped petticoat.

   Synonym: hoop skirt

   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     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 […].

   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 4:

     As I entered the room, the fire from the large square stove, where the logs were burning lustily, threw a red, flickering light through the wide-open door over the room, which was very deep, and furnished in the old style with high-backed Russia leather chairs, and one of those settees which were intended for farthingales and straight up-and-down positions.

   • 2003 May 3, Alexander Chancellor, The Guardian:

     In Henry VIII's Great Hall, there were men in doublets and codpieces prancing up and down with women in farthingales.

Derived terms

• farthingale chair

Translations

hooped structure

• Bulgarian: кринолин m (krinolin)
• Finnish: krinoliini (fi)
• French: crinoline (fr) f
• Swedish: krinolin (sv) c