millineric

English

Etymology

From milliner +‎ -ic.

Adjective

millineric (comparative more millineric, superlative most millineric)

1. Of or relating to women’s hats.
   • 1880 March 31, Mary Wager-Fisher, “The Doctrine of a Church Bonnet”, in The Christian Union, volume XXI, number 13, New York, N.Y.: the N. Y. and Brooklyn Publishing Co., Limited, page 304:

     Mrs X⸺ sat in front of me, and there was a wreath on her bonnet so provokingly like the real flowers that I could look at nothing else and think of nothing else but the wonderful skill attained to in their manufacture; my thoughts danced a jig half over the world, started and kept in motion by that millineric creation.

   • 1887 June 16, “Fashion Notes for Ladies”, in Wood County Reporter‎^[1], volume XXX, number 24, Grand Rapids, Wis.:

     The “Frances Cleveland” hat shown at Ridley’s is simply lovely! […] It was purchased by a “brown[-]ish blond” whose complexional requirements were nobly met by the “combine” of garnet and sky-blue, and was pronounced a piece of millineric perfection.

   • 1887 December 20, Spirit of Jefferson‎^[2], volume XXII, number 51, Charlestown, W.Va.:

     At Burns & Shugert’s there is a vast aggregation of rare and beautiful things, from fine underwear to elegant cloaks; from millineric marvels of all sizes, shapes and stuffs, to the daintiest boots.

   • 1889 May 5, “Ladies’ Day. The Time When New Bonnets Will Appear in Great Profusion.”, in The Meriden Sunday Journal‎^[3], volume VII, number 18, Meriden, Conn.:

     Indeed so general will be the display of millineric colors and combinations that the day should be known as Bonnet Day in the fashionable calendar.

   • 1890 February 7, Crescent, “Styles Present and Prospective”, in The Plain Speaker‎^[4], volume IX, number 2, Hazleton, Pa.:

     Brown shades have a slight millineric prestige.

   • 1890 February 14, Sidney Earle, “Our New York Letter”, in The Plain Speaker‎^[5], volume IX, number 8, Hazleton, Pa.:

     The way to settle the shape question is to adopt the arrangement of hair best suited to the face, then make millineric selections in accordance therewith.

   • 1890 February 20, Crescent, “The Fashions”, in The Plain Speaker‎^[6], volume IX, number 13, Hazleton, Pa.:

     Bows of satin-face and gauze ribbon will be a feature in millineric garmiture.

   • 1891 June 6, “Fashion and Household”, in The Blackburn Standard and Weekly Express, volume LV, number 2.886, page 2:

     A woman who puts on such a little millineric triumph is a woman lost, so far as the price of it is concerned.

   • 1892 June 11, Judge, volume 22, number 556, page 398:

     A MILLINERIC MONSTROSITY. Mr. Presby—“Pauleen!” Miss Presby—“I’s heah.” Mr. Presby—“Dat new hat ob yourn wiv d’ mockin’-bird’s wings on ter it jes’ blowed outen d’ windy.”

   • 1892 October 27, “The Autumn Lass: As the Leader Caught Her on the Streets Today. There is a Distinction Between the Summer Girl and the Fall Variety, But They Are Both Good to Behold.”, in The Kentucky Leader, volume 5, number 152, Lexington, Ky., page 8:

     She wears a trig little coat, buttoned up to her pretty chin, with perhaps a touch of scarlet there, and if she hasn’t had to make her old hat over for economic reasons, a most effusive millineric structure is displayed upon the autumn tintings of her lock.

   • 1893 April 22, “Modistes and Milliners”, in The Daily Telegraph, number 11,836, London, page 4:

     Well, there is next Saturday, when we will hope to say much of these if the sunshine and the white butterflies in and out through the young green foliage continue to inspire summerlike aspirations for millineric matters.

   • 1894 February 5, “Chips”, in North-Eastern Daily Gazette‎^[7]:

     A gentleman of some taste in matters millineric has remarked that girls dress much more girlishly at festivities out of London than at those in town.

   • 1894 April 7, “Dress of the Day”, in The Daily Telegraph, number 12,136, London, page 3:

     There is an aquatic green which is just now the rage, and which is seen in dresses in conjunction with black, white, tan, or brown; the best millineric form of it is in watercress, with which humble product the brims of some exceedingly smart bonnets are trimmed, while the same green is also seen in rosettes of river-grass cleverly simulated.

   • 1895 November 16, “Dress of the Day”, in The Daily Telegraph, number 12,640, London, page 9:

     Tulle is quite the correct thing to wear in the evening, alike for maids and matrons. The former wear it in all its fluffy, fairylike, poetic prettiness; the latter use it as trimming. Either way it is charming and a change from chiffon, the perishable fabric that promises to be everlasting, which is a millineric paradox.

   • 1896 March 12, The Cornishman, volume XVIII, number 923, Penzance, page 2:

     It is a season, as regards millinery, especially of flowers, colour, and trimming; but everything depends upon how these millineric elements elements are mingled.

   • 1896 May 11, “Costumes for the Czar’s Coronation”, in The Belfast News-Letter, volume CLIX, number 25,218, Belfast, page 6:

     St. Petersburg will also catch a glimpse of millineric glories;

   • 1896 December 21, “The Theater Hat”, in The Brooklyn Daily Times, Brooklyn, N.Y., page 4:

     Who shall see fragile creations of millineric genius bent or lopped off or tilted to one side to bring them within the regulations as to height?

   • 1897 February 20, “Dress of the Day”, in The Belfast News-Letter, volume CLX, number 25,460, Belfast, page 7:

     Naturally, only for such important events is anything divulged so early, but these gowns are of such rich and costly character that it would be millineric tragedy to find them even slightly behind the times when functions of the greatest brilliance demanded their re-entry later on, without the magnificent train worn on State occasions.

   • 1897 March 18, “Latest Fashions”, in The Cornishman, volume XIX, number 976, Penzance, page 3:

     French Dress was made a fetish to us years ago when the Empress of the French was leader of fashion. Now things are changed, and although it would be unfair and untrue to deny French taste and eye for colour and style a leading place in matters millineric, yet we have discovered that we Englishwomen have characteristics of face and figure that render French fashions unsuitable to us.

   • 1898, The Cambridge Review, page 400:

     The reasonable man allows for and enjoys verbal embroidery as much as the lady does the millineric variety of the article.

   • 1904 April 24, S. W. Gillilan, “The Milliner’s Lament”, in The Boston Sunday Globe, volume LXV, number 115, Boston, Mass., page 7:

     They declare I take some gewgaws worth a dime, or maybe less, / And magically turn them to a millineric mess.

   • 1907, Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic News, page 144:

     Friday there were so thin summer frocks to be seen, those that replaced seemed becoming and suitable, and of very hot and gloriously fine summer, was buried with millineric honours!

   • 1911 April 16, “Tales of the Town Told in a Few Lines: Pencil Stubs Picked Up at Random”, in Americus Times-Recorder‎^[8], thirty-third year, number 91, Americus, Ga.:

     The auto parade this afternoon will be next in importance only to the millineric pageant moving majestically in Easteric magnificence.

   • 1914, W[illiam] A[lbert] Sherwood, “The Dainty Little Milliner”, in Lays, Lyrics and Legends, Toronto, Ont.: The Hunter-Rose Co., Limited, page 17:

     Oft I wished I was a drummer, talking to the pretty girls, / Showing them how light blue ribbons match their flood of golden curls; / After all it’s well I am not, for to me somehow it seems / That my poor head would grow weary with those millineric dreams.

   • 1918, The Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality, page 44:

     In every department of this well-known house it will be found that the soundest clothes and millineric investments can be made, with the assurance that everything is of the very best.

   • 1920, The Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality, page x:

     These are millineric heirlooms, however, and pass from hat to hat, so that economists might absolve their wearers from undue extravagance.

   • 1920 October 30, The Illustrated London News, volume 157, number 4254, page 706:

     In spite (writes “A. E. L.”) of the efforts of many enterprising amateur designers, urged by the plaints of a daily paper that the head-covering of man was sadly out of date, and that our great male minority were awaiting breathlessly something new, neat, light, and becoming, created by millineric genius for their benefit, I can see no change.

   • 1921 March 17, The Winnipeg Evening Tribune, volume XXXII, number 64, Winnipeg, Man., page 12:

     FLOWERS AND THINGS OVER-RUN EVERYTHING “MILLINERIC”

   • 1921 June 11, “Dress at Ascot. As It Was and Is.”, in The Daily Telegraph, number 20,638, London, page 6:

     Paradise plumes and thick clusters of ospreys, or deep fringes of them, continue to be the aristocracy of millineric ornaments, but are curiously and rakishly disposed.

   • 1922 April 8, “The World of Women”, in The Illustrated London News, volume 160, number 4329, page 518:

     Our French neighbours are not loving us very much just now, I am told, and they are guarding themselves against supplying our sartorial or millineric wants cheaply.

   • 1994, Raymond Earl Jennings, “What Does Disjunction do?”, in The Genealogy of Disjunction, New York, N.Y., Oxford: Oxford University Press, part 1 (The Story of ‘Or’), section 3 (Antecedents of Russell’s Formulation), page 37:

     In his reply, Ryle swaps Mabbott’s (now bivalent) railway signal for Mrs. Smith’s (multivalent) hat and restates Mabbott’s position in the millineric idiom: . . . “Mrs. Smith’s hat is not green” presupposes, you say, that Mrs. Smith’s hat is some-colour-or-other, i.e., “Mrs. Smith’s hat is not green” is nonsense unless it is true that the hat is either red or blue or green or yellow . . . But that is just the point. It is not true. A particular hat can not have a disjunctive colouring or hover between alternatives. If it is e.g., blue, then it isn’t any other colour, and so there is no “either-or” about it at all. (90–91)

Synonyms

• millinerial