Definitions

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

  • noun Ornamental trimming for a garment, as braid, lace, or metallic beads.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Edgings and trimmings in general, especially those made of gimp, braid, or the like: often made with jet or metal beads: as, jet passementerie; plain passementerie (that is, without beading). See passement.

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

  • noun Trimmings, esp. of braids, cords, gimps, beads, or tinsel.

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

  • noun A decorative piece of lace or other cloth on clothes.

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

  • noun a decoration or adornment on a garment

Etymologies

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

[French, from passement, ornamental braid, cloth, from Old French, a passing, from passer, to pass; see pass.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the French passement, meaning 'decorative lace'.

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Examples

  • It was there that we first saw extraordinary dressmaker details - edging with beautiful "passementerie," along with beads, buttons, feathers and appliques on linen, velvet, wool, felt, leather, cashmere and silk.

    Berks county news 2009

  • In 1910, wrote Richardson, she already stood out for the unconventional sparseness of her rooms, for her disdain of poufs and potted palms and too much passementerie ....

    Cleanliness: A Matter of Beauty Linda 2008

  • In 1910, wrote Richardson, she already stood out for the unconventional sparseness of her rooms, for her disdain of poufs and potted palms and too much passementerie ....

    Archive 2008-02-01 Linda 2008

  • It is easy to imagine that the five decorative tassels in a discreet wall case near the entrance are the tips of a vast and justifiably little-explored iceberg of passementerie.

    A Chair For All Reasons 2008

  • The tireless attention to detail of the beading or passementerie used to finish Mr. St. Laurent's thought?

    Yves Saint Laurent at the de Young Museum sfmike 2008

  • Handmade passementerie a dying art and his use of age old techniques is encouraging for the future.

    Passementerie 2007

  • They have revived the ancient craft of passementerie to a new level gaining the respect as a new art form.

    Passementerie 2007

  • “He insulted us all and the Confederacy too,” said Mrs. Merriwether, and her stout bust heaved violently beneath its glittering passementerie trimmings.

    Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1996

  • “He insulted us all and the Confederacy too,” said Mrs. Merriwether, and her stout bust heaved violently beneath its glittering passementerie trimmings.

    Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1996

  • “He insulted us all and the Confederacy too,” said Mrs. Merriwether, and her stout bust heaved violently beneath its glittering passementerie trimmings.

    Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1996

Comments

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  • passementerie (10 S. viii. 448).— I am not sure that I know what " passementerie " is, but I think it is akin to gimp, and I imagine that "a hundred passementerie " may mean so many devices made of wire enclosed in a casing of silken threads, or of thread or cord sufficiently strong to be twisted into shape without metallic support. " Two doz. abeill pasmenterie " were perhaps twenty-four bits of trimming, more or less, in the form of bees (abeilies). They may have been for badges.

    Notes and Queries, 1908, page 54.

    April 14, 2010

  • "instead of having to repeatedly draw lace or other fine ornamentals like schiffli or passementarie trims, you can render them once, then define a brush." from a textbook on CAD for fashion design.

    October 6, 2012