Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An ornamentation, worn on the shoulders of a military uniform, as a sign of rank
  • noun A similar piece of trimming on a lady’s dress
  • noun A plate on the anterior wings of some hymenopteral insects
  • noun The red patch on the shoulders of a red-winged blackbird

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun adornment consisting of an ornamental cloth pad worn on the shoulder

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French épaulette, from épaule (“shoulder”) +‎ -ette (“diminutive”).

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Examples

  • French eagle; the face was ingeniously made up of human carcases, knotted and writhing together in such directions as to form a physiognomy; a band, or stock, shaped to resemble the English Channel, encircled his throat, and seemed to choke him; his epaulette was a hand tearing a cobweb that represented the treaty of peace with England; and his ear was

    The Trumpet-Major Thomas Hardy 1884

  • It was not long after my daughter was born, and when I held out my hand to shake the movie stars I realized I had this kind of epaulette of banana sick on my black jacket.

    An Interview with Allison Pearson 2010

  • The silks are worn as a headband, as a bustier and threaded through an epaulette.

    Fashion Ties the Knot Christina Passariello 2011

  • Depends on how they were removed - of course it wouldnt be that you just simply couldnt see them, what with them only being 1/2 an inch high or that in a riot with people grabbing at you and lots of moving around the tiny ‘made by the lowest bidder’ metal popper holding the epaulette on may have failed and they slid off?

    Ooooh….. I didn’t know that! « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2009

  • They both stepped back as another paramedic bustled past them, a walkie-talkie squawking on her epaulette.

    The Priest Gerard O’Donovan 2011

  • For all that can be found in the exotic parts of the dictionary (the most recently searched Wordnik words at the moment include palimpsest, irrendentist, epaulette, and interrobang), the greatest mysteries sometimes lurk in the everyday.

    2009 June « Motivated Grammar 2009

  • There at the side of the pitch was a chap with a crown and a pip on his epaulette.

    Satisfied? Confident? You Will Be…… « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2010

  • For all that can be found in the exotic parts of the dictionary (the most recently searched Wordnik words at the moment include palimpsest, irrendentist, epaulette, and interrobang), the greatest mysteries sometimes lurk in the everyday.

    Apparently “the” was in short supply during the Depression « Motivated Grammar 2009

  • The jacket appears to have the letters “AA” on the epaulette.

    Dad Is Back (for the moment) - By Chuck Gadget « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2008

  • It is necessary to destroy all the negroes of the mountains, men and women, sparing only children under the age of twelve, and destroy half of those of the plain, without leaving a single colored man in the colony who ever wore an epaulette.

    Genocide in Haiti: Fulfilling Leclerc's imperative 2009

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