wimple

English

Wikipedia

Etymology 1

From Middle English wimpel, from Old English wimpel (“veil, an article of women's dress; a covering for the neck, a cloak, a hood”), from Proto-Germanic *wimpilaz (“wimple, scarf, veil”). Cognate with Scots wympill (“wimple”), Dutch wimpel (“streamer, pennant”), German Wimpel (“pennant”), Swedish vimpel (“pennant, banner”), Icelandic vimpill (“hood, cowl”).

Noun

wimple (plural wimples)

1. A cloth which usually covers the head and is worn around the neck and chin. It was worn by women in medieval Europe and is still worn by nuns in certain orders.
2. A fold or pleat in cloth.
3. A ripple, as on the surface of water.
4. A curve or bend.
5. A flag or streamer.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Weale to this entry?)

Translations

Cloth used to cover a nun's head

• Dutch: nonnenkap (nl)

• Romanian: văl (ro) n, broboadă (ro) f

Fold or pleat

• Dutch: plooi (nl)

Ripple

• Dutch: rimpel (nl)

Curve or bend

• Dutch: kromming (nl), bocht (nl)

• Romanian: curbură (ro) f, meandră (ro) f, cotitură (ro) f

Etymology 2

From Middle English wimplen (“to cover, conceal; to fold, drape”)

Verb

wimple (third-person singular simple present wimples, present participle wimpling, simple past and past participle wimpled)

1. To cover with a wimple.
2. To draw down; to lower.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I^[1], edition 1921 ed.:

     IV A lovely Ladie[*] rode him faire beside, Upon a lowly Asse more white then snow, Yet she much whiter, but the same did hide 30 Under a vele, that wimpled was full low, And over all a blacke stole she did throw, As one that inly mournd: so was she sad, And heavie sat upon her palfrey slow; Seemed in heart some hidden care she had, 35 And by her in a line a milke white lambe she lad.

3. To cause to ripple.
   • 1920, George Allan England, The Flying Legion^[2]:

     Stars wavered and wimpled in the black waters of the Hudson as a launch put out in silence from the foot of Twenty-seventh Street.

4. To flutter.
   • 1836, Joseph Rodman Drake, The Culprit Fay^[3]:

     She wimpled about in the pale moonbeam, Like a feather that floats on a wind tossed-stream; And momently athwart her track The quarl upreared his island back, And the fluttering scallop behind would float, And patter the water about the boat; But he bailed her out with his colen-bell, And he kept her trimmed with a wary tread, While on every side like lightening fell