Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A mourning-costumeless somberthan full ordeep mourning.
  • noun A butterfly, Papilio galatea, having yellowish wings spotted with black and white.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • It also became the Victorian colour for half-mourning.

    Notes and queries: Some uses for 14,000 video cassettes; The man who invented mauve; How we might miss the aliens by a few billion years 2011

  • The costumes were stunning, particularly a lavendar and black dress that Victoria wore when she was in half-mourning.

    Sunday Movie Review: The Young Victoria Elizabeth Kerri Mahon 2009

  • The costumes were stunning, particularly a lavendar and black dress that Victoria wore when she was in half-mourning.

    Archive 2009-12-01 Elizabeth Kerri Mahon 2009

  • Deep mourning, for example, for a widow might be two years, followed by a period of half-mourning.

    Archive 2008-06-01 2008

  • Deep mourning, for example, for a widow might be two years, followed by a period of half-mourning.

    Victorian Funerals and Mourning 2008

  • When he laid aside his black, his whiskers, too, went into a sort of half-mourning, and appeared in grey.

    The Newcomes 2006

  • She went nimbly round and round the beds of anemones, tulips, jonquils, polyanthuses, and other old-fashioned flowers, looking a very charming figure in her half-mourning bonnet, and with an incomplete nosegay in her left hand.

    Wessex Tales 2006

  • Caroline be married in half-mourning; I am sure that mother, could she know, would not wish it, and it is odd that Caroline should be so intractably persistent on this point, when she is usually so yielding.

    A Changed Man 2006

  • He dresses in half-mourning always, and never wears any jewelry, but strictly shuns all society, and prefers uncivilized regions.

    Erema Richard Doddridge 2004

  • And silent was that half-mourning dinner in the heat.

    To Let 2004

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