millinery
(ˈmɪlɪnərɪ)
Forms: see milliner n.
[f. milliner n.: see -ery.]
1. The articles made or sold by milliners.
| 1679–88 Secr. Serv. Money Chas. & Jas. (Camden) 91 To Benjn Drake, in full of a bill for millenary, wares [? read millenary wares], &c. bought of him by the Dutchess of Cleaveland. 1796 Burke Regic. Peace iii. (1892) 236 You will hardly expect me to go through the tape and thread, and all the other small wares of haberdashery and millinery to be gleaned up among our imports. 1855 Tennyson Maud i. vi. 43 That dandy-despot, he, That jewell'd mass of millinery. 1901 Max Müller Autobiog 289, I could not understand how these men..could put aside the fundamental questions of Christianity and give their whole mind to what seemed to me rightly called in the newspapers ‘mere millinery’. |
2. The trade or business of a milliner.
| 1838 Dickens Nich. Nick. xvii, Processes known only to those who are cunning in the arts of millinery and dressmaking. |
3. attrib.
| 1741 Richardson Pamela II. 351 What can be done in Town, as the Milanery Matters, &c., to be completed there. 1748 Anson's Voy. ii. x. 246 European millinery ware for the women. 1880 E. Hervey Mourtray Fam. IV. 96 My maid came to ask, if I chose to see some very pretty millinery articles. 1882 Daily News 4 Mar., Cotton millinery laces are still greatly run upon. 1896 Ibid. 26 Sept. 6/4 Chrysanthemums in all colours are the millinery flower of the moment. 1900 Westm. Gaz. 5 Dec. 9/1 The eminent millinery establishment. 1912 Every Woman's Encycl. VII. 4447/2 Get some dark green millinery wire covered. 1932 D. C. Minter Mod. Needlecraft 174/1 Lace Trimmings..are always mounted on thin millinery wire. 1966 Olney Amsden & Sons Ltd. Price List 29 Millinery wires..Satin wire..7/- dozen. |