Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A close-fitting undergarment, often reinforced by stays, worn to support and shape the waistline, hips, and breasts.
- noun A medieval outer garment, especially a laced jacket or bodice.
- transitive verb To enclose in or as if in a corset.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To inclose in a corset.
- noun In the middle ages, a close-fitting body-garment.
- noun A similar garment stuffed and quilted to form a garment of fence; a piece of armor, similar to the gambeson, worn by crossbowmen and foot-soldiers about 1475.
- noun A shaped, close-fitting body or waist, usually made of quilted satin jean, stiffened by strips of steel or whalebone, and so designed as to admit of tightening by lacing, worn chiefly by women to give shape and support to the figure; stays. Often in plural, corsets.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To inclose in corsets.
- noun In the Middle Ages, a gown or basque of which the body was close fitting, worn by both men and women.
- noun An article of dress inclosing the chest and waist worn (chiefly by women) to support the body or to modify its shape; stays.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
woman 'sfoundation garment , reinforced withstays , that supports thewaistline ,hips andbust . - verb transitive To
enclose in a corset; towear a corset. - verb figuratively To
restrict orconfine .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a woman's close-fitting foundation garment
- verb dress with a corset
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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I mean, seriously -- a duck in a corset is a duck with its wings bound to its sides and its feet smooshed to its belly.
Stuff. And things. driveforlife 2005
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But a real custom made overbust corset is an expensive thing.
To buy or not to buy? nathreee 2009
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A corset is not sexy principally because it emphasizes a woman's secondary sexual characteristics.
Why there is no equivalent of a corset for men: a theory 2009
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A corset is sexy because it emphasizes the differences between a woman and a man -- where "man" should be read in the deprecated meaning of "human being."
Why there is no equivalent of a corset for men: a theory 2009
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THe corset is often blamed for causing the death of every Victorian woman that ever lived, but not everyone wore them.
Modest Active Wear 2009
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The corset is by Mayfaire Moon, and the hat is by ViolentBelle.
Friday! gumboeditor 2009
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Maybe they are so angry because their corset is too tight, or was not fitted right.
Archive 2007-07-01 2007
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50 Mrs. Trollope, writing in 1832, tells of a young German gentleman of perfectly good manners who offended one of the principal families by having pronounced the word corset before the ladies of it.
Chapter 4. American and English Today. 5. Expletives and Forbidden Words Henry Louis 1921
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A young German gentleman of perfectly good manners, once came to me greatly chagrined at having offended one of the principal families in the neighbourhood, by having pronounced the word corset before the ladies of it.
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Before that, there was the horribly uncomfortable and unhealthy corset, also invented by a woman (the invention of the corset is attributed to Catherine de Médicis, wife of King Henri II of France.
asativum commented on the word corset
Corset isn't very comfortable for the wearer.
September 8, 2009
bilby commented on the word corset
"Instead of a stable pyramid, then, think of an expanded yet still exhausted service taking on a more unstable, hourglass shape: heavy at the top with long-serving colonels and generals, heavy at the bottom with 'green' privates and lieutenants, but corseted at its essential core due to shortages of experienced platoon sergeants and battle-hardened company and battalion commanders."
- William Astore, They’re Wasted: The Price of Pushing Our Troops Too Far, tomdispatch.com, 16 Dec 2009.
December 16, 2009