Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A collared, usually ruffled covering for the neck and shoulders, popular in Europe in the 1500s and worn especially by women.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A garment for the neck and shoulders, especially for women.
  • noun A hen.

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

  • noun obsolete A covering for the neck, and sometimes for the shoulders and breast; originally worn by both sexes, but later by women alone; a ruff.
  • noun A hen; -- so called from the ruffing of her neck feathers.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration of Middle English patelet, from Old French patelete, band of cloth, diminutive of pate, paw; see patois.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin unknown; perhaps a diminutive form of pert.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin unknown.

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Examples

  • Counterbalancing this is the quasi-Egyptian inscrutability of her eyes; the mask-like ivory oval of her face; the light blue halo effect around her head; the shield-like rigidity of her bodice; and the chain-mail of her pearl and gold partlet.

    Bronzino's Medici portraits – review James Hall 2010

  • Nathalie: One could make a good argument for the Elizabethan partlet being a proto-dickey.

    Today's Pattern Story and Sale - A Dress A Day 2010

  • Nathalie: One could make a good argument for the Elizabethan partlet being a proto-dickey.

    Today's Pattern Story and Sale - A Dress A Day 2010

  • Catherine Seyton presently exclaimed, “They were bearing the dishes across the court, marshalled by the Lady Lochleven herself, dressed out in her highest and stiffest ruff, with her partlet and sleeves of cyprus, and her huge old-fashioned farthingale of crimson velvet.”

    The Abbot 2008

  • The angels minister to the tyrants; or the gentle, hen-pecked husband cowers before the superior partlet.

    The Kickleburys on the Rhine 2006

  • A smudge of black marred her cheek and the ribbon on her partlet was undone.

    Tempted by Your Touch JEN HOLLING 2002

  • She moved in front of Fayth, adjusting the partlet that hid her modest bosom—as well as the rack of ribs and jutting collarbones stretching her translucent skin.

    Tempted by Your Touch JEN HOLLING 2002

  • With her partlet gone it peeked out the top of her bodice.

    Tempted by Your Touch JEN HOLLING 2002

  • A partlet filled the square neck of her gown, not allowing him the tiniest glimpse of skin.

    Tempted by Your Touch JEN HOLLING 2002

  • Beneath the cloak her chest was covered with a partlet and flattened by her stays and bodice.

    Tempted by Your Touch JEN HOLLING 2002

Comments

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  • n garment for neck and shoulders, usually ruffled and having a collar

    August 15, 2008