lutestring

English

Etymology

Corrupted form of French lustring, probably influenced by lute.

Noun

lutestring (countable and uncountable, plural lutestrings)

1. (archaic) A plain, stout, lustrous silk, used for ladies' dresses and for ribbon.
   • 1759 October 25 (Gregorian calendar), [Oliver] Goldsmith, “On Dress”, in The Bee, a Select Collection of Essays, on the Most Interesting and Entertaining Subjects, […], new edition, number 2, London: […] W[illiam] Lane, […], published c. 1790, →OCLC:

     There goes Mrs. Roundabout, I mean the fat lady in the luteſtring trollopee. Betvveen you and I, ſhe is but a cutler's vvife. See hovv ſhe's dreſſed, as fine as hands and pins can make her […]

   • 1766, George Colman, David Garrick, The Clandestine Marriage, a Comedy. […], London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, […]; R[oberts] Baldwin, […]; R. Davis, […]; and T[homas] Davies, […], →OCLC, Act I, page 13:

     Lord, I have ſuch a deal to do, I ſhall ſcarce have time to ſlip on my Italian luteſting.—VVhere is this davvdle of a houſekeeper?

   • 1784, Abagail Adams, cited in David McCullough, John Adams, page 305:

     A dressing chemise of Tiffany which she had on over a blue lutestring

2. A type of moth with a band-like marking across the forewing, of the former taxonomic family Thyatiridae, also, the band-like marking.
   • 2015, Chris Manley, British Moths, page 196:

     There are six hook-tips and 10 in the lutestring group, which was formerly treated as a separate family, Thyatiridae.

   • 2021, James Lowen, British Moths: A Gateway Guide, page 75:

     A quartet of moths in the subfamily Thyatirinae, known collectively as lutestrings – of which the spring-flying Frosted Green and Yellow Horned are also members.

   • 2021, Paul D. Brock, Britain's Insects, page 429:

     Other lutestrings (3 spp., each in its own genus [n/i]), which do not have black spot on forewing and lack the black dash on wingtip.

   • 2023, Richard South, The Moths of the British Isles:

     These specimens have the "lutestrings" of or, and the "figure of 80" characteristic of octogessima.

3. The string of a lute.
   • 2010, George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, Songs of the Dying Earth: Short Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, page 461:

     More scrolls were wedged into the wall's pigeonholes, along with minature assemblages of circuitry and glass, a theramin wand, coils of lutestrings and ivory lute-keys, stacks of crystal discs, a broken gamelan.

   • 2011, Alison Weir, Children of England: The Heirs of King Henry VIII 1547-1558, page 131:

     Seventeen shillings went on replacement lutestrings for Elizabeth herself. Her greatest pleasures were playing her lute or virginals, reading or sewing.

   • 2013, Simo Knuuttila, Juha Sihvola, Sourcebook for the History of the Philosophy of Mind, page 90:

     When, I say, that the motion of an Object is imprest upon a Corporeal Organ, I would not have it understood that the motion, for example, of the Eye is only made there, but that it passess up to the Brain, from whence the Fibres of the Nerves, like Lutestrings in a Lute, are stretcht out to other Members.

   • 2019, Emerson Kathy Lynn, How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries:

     Wondering how else he passed his time, Winifred surveyed the room again, this time without regard for the monetary value of the things she saw. A box of lutestrings. Five songbooks. But no lute.

   • 2020, Francis Darwin, Springtime and Other Essays, page 43:

     Henry VIII. and his daughters Mary and Elizabeth are said to have been good lutenists. The smaller gut strings, called by the pleasant name of minnikins, were easily broken, and a gift of lutestrings was considered a present fit for a queen, and one which the great Elizabeth did not disdain.