† shaffron Obs.
Forms: 5 shawfron, 6–7 shaf(f)ron, 7 shafrone, shaferne, 8 shafferoon; 6 (Sc. in sense 2) schaifron, saferon, schaffroun, chaffrone, cheffroun, chaiffer, schaiffer.
[Variant of chaffron, chamfrain.]
1. The frontlet of a barbed horse: = chaffron, chamfrain.
| 1465 Shawfron [see chamfrain]. 1547–8, 1610, 1617 [see chaffron]. 1590 Sir J. Smythe Disc. Weapons 31 b, Their shafrons, cranets, or steele pectorells. 1660 in Archæologia XI. 100 Shaffroones. |
2. Sc. ‘A piece of ornamental head-dress anciently worn by ladies’ (Jam.).
| 1511 Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot. IV. 210 Item, to be schaiffronis to the sam hudis, half ane elne crammesy. Ibid. 230 Item, for half quartar crammesy satin, to be ane schaiffer to hir hud, viij s. ix d. Ibid., Item, for making of the hud and chaiffer, viij s. 1512 Ibid. 213 For ane chaffrone of gold. 1516 Inv. R. Wardrobe (1815) 24 Ane saferon with ane chenye of gold of blak veluous. Ibid. 27 Item, ane schaffroun with ane burd of gold with lxxxi perle... Item, ane cheffroun sett with goldsmyth werk with xxxv perle. |
† b. = chaperon 2. Obs.
[Possibly shafferoon may be the correct form, and the form chaperon, -oon may be due to pseudo-etymology.]
| 1725 J. Coats Dict. Her. (1739) 73 Those little Shields, containing Death's Heads, and other Funeral Devices, plac'd upon the Foreheads of the Horses, that draw Hearses at Pompous Funerals vulgarly now call'd, by Corruption Chaperoons, or Shafferoons. |