butcher's mourning

English edit

Noun edit

butcher's mourning (uncountable)

  1. (UK, slang, obsolete) A white hat with a black mourning hatband.
    • 1855, William Calcraft, The Groans of the Gallows, page 13:
      Hats off, down there, you in the white hat and crape — you in the butcher's mourning — bonnet him — silence! Yes, says the Brahmin, the ceremony is about to begin; the national games are about to commence.

References edit

  • John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary