‖ sombrero
(sɒmˈbrɛərəʊ)
Also 7 sumbrero, -briero, 8 somerera (?).
[Sp. sombrero (= Pg. sombreiro), f. sombra shade.]
† 1. An Oriental umbrella or parasol. Obs.
Purchas and Herbert also use the fuller expression sombrero de sol.
| 1598 Hakluyt Voy. II. 258 With a great Sombrero or shadow ouer their heads..as broad as a great cart wheele. 1638 Sir T. Herbert Trav. (ed. 2) 316 Some.. hold a Sumbrero or Umbrella in their hands to lenefie the flaming Sun. 1698 Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 51 We saw two Sumbrero's (a Mark for some of Quality) held up in the Boat-stern. 1727 A. Hamilton New Acc. E. Ind. I. xxvii. 338 Some lusty Dutch Men to carry their Palenqueens and Somereras or Umbrellas. |
2. A broad-brimmed hat, usually of felt or some soft material, of a type common in Spain and Spanish America.
| 1770 Gentl. Mag. XL. 530 A brown cap or silk net, with a large flatted hat called a sombrero over it. 1823 Scott Quentin D. xiv, A slouched overspreading hat, which resembled the sombrero of a Spanish peasant. 1855 Thackeray Newcomes I. 280 In a velvet coat with a sombrero slouched over his face. 1885 A. Brassey The Trades 177 It is sometimes called..the hat-palm, the young shoots making excellent sombreros or panamas. |
| attrib. 1891 E. Roper By Track & Trail ix. 134 Their hats were of the sombrero order. 1900 Times 29 Jan. 10/3 Graceful Khaki-coloured sombrero hats. |
3. Microbiol. A bacterial plaque in which a ring of partial lysis surrounds a clear central area.
| 1971 Cunningham & Sercarz in European Jrnl. Immunol. I. 414/1 Plaques which were clear in the middle but with a variable concentric zone of partial lysis at the periphery (christened ‘sombreros’), were scored as clear. 1975 Nature 20 Feb. 639/1 Those which started as sombreros..always grew into larger sombreros. |