Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A head-dress fashionable in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A kind of tall headdress formerly worn.

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

  • noun A curly headdress popular among aristocrats in Europe in the late 17th century and early 18th century, made of knots of ribbons.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Angélique de Fontanges, one of French king Louis XIV's mistresses, who sported the headdress.

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Examples

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  • A high-standing headdress worn by women during the 17th and 18th centuries. Derives from the name of the first wearer, Mlle. de Fontanges, c. 1679.

    April 18, 2008