PETTICOAT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does petticoat mean? 

• PETTICOAT (noun)
  The noun PETTICOAT has 1 sense:

1. undergarment worn under a skirt

  Familiarity information: PETTICOAT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PETTICOAT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Undergarment worn under a skirt

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

half-slip; petticoat; underskirt

Hypernyms ("petticoat" is a kind of...):

undergarment; unmentionable (a garment worn under other garments)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "petticoat"):

crinoline (a full stiff petticoat made of crinoline fabric)

 Context examples 

'Not that it was such a very old petticoat either—for still it would last a great while—and, indeed, she must thankfully say that their petticoats were all very strong.'

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

"It glorifies love as well as the petticoat," Martin laughed.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Her dirty petticoat quite escaped my notice.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Five people out of six would die—of course—of that woman in nankeen with the flannel petticoat.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Yet she was meanly dressed, a coarse blue petticoat and a linen jacket being her only garb; her fair hair was plaited but not adorned: she looked patient yet sad.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The ladies and courtiers were all most magnificently clad; so that the spot they stood upon seemed to resemble a petticoat spread upon the ground, embroidered with figures of gold and silver.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

They had all full white sleeves of some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of course there were petticoats under them.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

So busy was she on this day that she did not hear Laurie's ring nor see his face peeping in at her as she gravely promenaded to and fro, flirting her fan and tossing her head, on which she wore a great pink turban, contrasting oddly with her blue brocade dress and yellow quilted petticoat.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Mrs. Fairfax was summoned to give information respecting the resources of the house in shawls, dresses, draperies of any kind; and certain wardrobes of the third storey were ransacked, and their contents, in the shape of brocaded and hooped petticoats, satin sacques, black modes, lace lappets, &c., were brought down in armfuls by the abigails; then a selection was made, and such things as were chosen were carried to the boudoir within the drawing-room.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But he always had been such a very kind neighbour!' And then fly off, through half a sentence, to her mother's old petticoat.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)