ˌhoop-ˈpetticoat
1. A petticoat or skirt stiffened and expanded by hoops of whalebone, cane, hoop-steel, or the like. (See hoop n.1 6.)
| 1711 Addison Spect. No. 127 ¶5 There are Men of Superstitious Tempers, who look upon the Hoop Petticoat as a kind of Prodigy. 1725 Lond. Gaz. No. 6391/6 John Lee,..Hoop-Petticoat-Maker. 1770 Gray in Corr. with N. Nicholls (1843) 112 With what grace..can she conduct her hoop petticoat through this auger-hole, and up the dark windings of the grand escalier? 1837 L. Hunt Men, Women & B. (1876) 310 We perceive a rustling of hoop-petticoats. |
2. In full, hoop-petticoat narcissus or hoop-petticoat daffodil. A plant of the species Narcissus bulbocodium or N. cantabrica, so called from the shape of the yellow or white flowers.
| 1731 P. Miller Gardener's Dict. (s.v. Narcissus) 35 Rush-leaf'd Daffadil, with very narrow Petals, and a large tubulous Cup, commonly call'd The Hoop-Petticoat. 1790 Curtis's Bot. Mag. III. tab. 88 (heading) Narcissus Bulbocodium. Hoop Petticoat Narcissus. 1841 J. W. Loudon Ladies' Compan. Flower Garden 190/1 The genus Narcissus is a very extensive one, embracing, as it does, the Jonquils, the Polyanthus Narcissus, the little Hoop Petticoat, the Poet's Narcissus, and the Daffodils, besides numerous others. 1866 Treas. Bot., Corbularia, a genus of amaryllids, commonly called Hoop-petticoats... C. Bulbocodium, the common Hoop-petticoat. 1889 J. Habberton in Harper's Mag. Feb. 367/1 The daffodil, the ‘pheasant-eye’, and the ‘hoop-petticoat’ are all narcissuses. 1934 E. A. Bowles Handbk. Narcissus xix. 211 It is hard to believe that the white Hoop Petticoat was ever found so far to the north as Cantabrica. 1952 C. E. L. Phillips Small Garden xiii. 164 The ‘hoop-petticoat daffodil’ (N. bulbocodium), 6 ins., like a little bugle with virtually no perianth. 1961 P. M. Synge Collins Guide to Bulbs 232 Bulbocodium group. These are the hoop petticoats and they are nearly all subsp., varieties or forms of N. bulbocodium, a very large and variable sp., the exception being the early white-flowered forms known as monophyllus and foliosus which have now been separated under the name N. cantabricus. 1970 C. Lloyd Well-Tempered Garden 137, I dug up a congested clump of the hoop petticoat daffodil. |
Hence ˌhoop-ˈpetticoated a., wearing a hoop-petticoat; having a flower of this shape (see sense 2 above).
| 1837 Hawthorne Twice-Told T. (1851) II. iv. 79 A hoop-petticoated phantom of Esther Dudley. 1893 Daily News 28 Mar. 2/2 Hoop-petticoated daffodils. |