epaulet, epaulette
(ˈɛpəlɛt)
[a. Fr. épaulette, f. épaule shoulder.
The anglicized spelling epaulet is preferable, on the ground that the word is fully naturalized in use; but the form in -ette is at present more common.]
1. A shoulder-piece; an ornament worn on the shoulder as part of a military, naval, or sometimes of a civil uniform. to win one's epaulets: (of a private soldier) to earn promotion to the rank of officer.
| 1783 Nelson 26 Nov. in Nicolas Disp. (1845) I. 89 Here are two Navy Captains..with epaulettes. 1800 Naval Chron. III. 495 The Post Captain under three years standing..wears one epaulet upon the right shoulder. 1816 ‘Quiz’ Grand Master viii. 220 Gorget, epaulets, and sash, Lion and crown—a perfect dash. 1838 Hist. Rec. 4th Dragoon Guards 63 The Officers were ordered to wear two Silver Epaulettes and an Aiguillette. 1848 W. K. Kelly tr. L. Blanc's Hist. Ten Y. I. 220 Obliged to borrow from Rothschild, the banker, the epaulettes he wore as Austrian consul. 1875 Hamerton Intell. Life iii. vi. 101 A soldier wins his epaulettes before the enemy. |
b. As equivalent for ‘officer’, ‘commission’.
| 1829 Marryat F. Mildmay xvi, My captain elect..herded not with his brother epaulettes. 1848 Thackeray Bk. Snobs ix, When epaulets are not sold. |
2. Entom. The plate that covers the base of the anterior wings in hymenopterous insects.
| 1834 M{supc}Murtrie Cuvier's Anim. Kingd. 435 At the base of each of the superior wings is a kind of epaulette, prolonged posteriorly, that corresponds to the piece called tegula in the Hymenoptera. 1874 Lubbock Orig. & Met. Ins. iii. 56 The ciliated lobes or epaulets. |
3. Used by antiquarian writers as a name for the smaller forms of the shoulder-piece or ‘pauldron’ in a suit of armour.
| 1824 Meyrick Anc. Arm. III. 87 A suit of armour..resembling the halecrets of Henry the Eighth's time in having epaulettes for the shoulder. |
4. A piece of trimming forming an ornament for the shoulder of a lady's dress.
| 1865 Dickens Mut. Fr. i. ii, A shoulder—with a powdered epaulette on it—of the mature young lady. |
5. Comb., as epaulet-like adj.
| 1841–71 T. R. Jones Anim. Kingd. (ed. 4) 221 Four epaulet-like wreaths of long cilia. 1889 Daily News 12 Nov. 3/1 Oversleeves of the velvet are heaped up in epaulet-like folds upon the shoulders. |
Hence ˈepauˌletted ppl. a., furnished or ornamented with epaulets; wearing epaulets.
| 1810 Naval Chron. XXIII. 351 His epauletted coat. 1836 E. Howard R. Reefer xxviii, Heavily-epauletted shoulders. 1849 Blackw. Mag. LXV. 30 How were the Kabyles to distinguish between the acts of the private soldier and of the epauleted chief. 1860 Gen. P. Thompson Audi Alt. III. cxxiv. 77 To don the dress of epauletted hangmen. |