disˈguisement
[f. disguise v. + -ment; cf. OF. desguisement, mod.F. dég-, a disguising, that which serves to disguise.]
1. The fact of disguising, or of being disguised.
| 1583 Golding Calvin on Deut. cxi. 684 That they might not be put out of countenance by any faire disguisement. 1632 Lithgow Trav. iii. 82 To lend..an old gowne, and a blacke vaile for his disguisement. 1683 J. Pordage Myst. Div. 130 Blessed are they who through all these wiles and disguisements can find him. 1845 Blackw. Mag. LVII. 732 No disguisement of natural form is attempted. 1885 Times 13 Apr. 4/2 Such disguisement was always a direct infraction of international and military law. |
2. That which disguises, or whereby disguising is effected; a disguise; a garb that conceals the wearer's identity.
| 1580 Sidney Arcadia (1622) 53 Assuring myselfe, that vnder that disguisement, I should find oportunitie to reueale myselfe to the owner of my heart. 1590 Spenser F.Q. iii. vii. 14 What mister wight..That in so straunge disguizement there did maske. 1801 Strutt Sports & Past. iii. iii. 171 Minstrels and persons in disguisements. 1823 Lamb Elia (1860) 26 In this disguisement he was brought into the hall. 1861 T. A. Trollope La Beata II. xvii. 186 To don a black disguisement, and put our own hands to the work of mercy. |
3. pl. Additions or accessories that alter the appearance; adornments, bedizenments.
| 1638 Baker tr. Balzac's Lett. iii. (1654) 105 It hath paintings and disguisements, to alter the purity of all worldly things. 1768–74 Tucker Lt. Nat. (1852) II. 153 Stripped of all the disguisements, and foreign mixtures cast upon them. 1867 D. G. Mitchell Rur. Stud. 199 If the charming but costly disguisements of a park cannot be ventured upon at once. |