labretifery

English

Noun

labretifery (uncountable)

1. the practice of wearing labrets
   • 1891 Prof. Frederick Starr, "Dress and Adornment," Popular Science, Vol. 39, No. 30 (August 1891), Bonnier Corporation, p490

     In Africa labretifery is quite common, and varies from tribe to tribe.

   • 1911, Ellen Churchill Semple, Influences of Geographic Environment on the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography,, page 395:

     They include labretifery, tattooing the chin of adult women, certain uses of masks, a certain style of conventionalizing objects, the use of conventional signs as hieroglyphics, [...] and of artistic representations connected with their common religious or mythological ideas.

   • 1995 Allen P. McCartney, Hunting the largest animals: native whaling in the western Arctic and subarctic, Canadian Circumpolar Institute, University of Alberta, p9

     Labretifery occurred over a wide distribution from the Kuriles to southern British Columbia in the late prehistoric period.