furbelow

English

WOTD – 19 December 2011

Etymology

Corruption of falbala; first attested in the late 1600s or early 1700s. Not related to fur.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfəː.bɪ.ləʊ/, /ˈfəː.bə.ləʊ/
• IPA^(key): /ˈfɚ.bɪ.loʊ/, /ˈfɚ.bə.loʊ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

furbelow (plural furbelows)

1. A frill, flounce, or ruffle, as on clothing; a decorative piece of fabric, especially one gathered or pleated as into a ruffle, etc.
   • 1839, Frances Trollope, chapter I, in The Widow Barnaby. [...] In Three Volumes, volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 24–25:

     I do not think that from the blissful time when I was sixteen, up to my present solemn five-and-thirty, I could ever have been tempted to look a second time at any miss under the chaperonship of such a dame as that feather and furbelow lady.

   • 1863, John George Wood, The Illustrated Natural History, page 745,

     All the other furbelows, and portions of this one^{[this Medusa]} that lay below the expansion, floated as usual through the water, except that on some occasions an accessory power was obtained by pressing a portion of another furbelow to the side of the glass and making it adhere just like the portion that was exposed to the surface of the air.

   • 1964, E. J. H. Corner, The Life of Plants, 2002, University of Chicago Press, page 76,

     Each plant has several oarweed fronds on the top of a flat stem, well adapted to swaying in one direction but rigid in the other; along the rigid edges, where the water flows and eddies, develop the wavy furbelows.

2. A small, showy ornamentation.
   • 1954, Alexander Alderson, chapter 4, in The Subtle Minotaur‎^[1]:

     The band played ceaselessly. Even when the other instruments were resting the pianist kept up his monotonous vamping, with a dreary furbelow for embellishment here and there, to which some few of the dancers continued to shuffle round the floor.

Translations

ruffle — see ruffle

decorative piece of fabric

• Bulgarian: волан (bg) m (volan), набор (bg) m (nabor)
• Finnish: hepene (fi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Westrobothnian:

small, showy ornamentation

• Bulgarian: флинтифлюшка f (flintifljuška)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: безвкусная отде́лка (bezvkusnaja otdélka)

Verb

furbelow (third-person singular simple present furbelows, present participle furbelowing, simple past and past participle furbelowed)

1. (transitive) To adorn with a furbelow; to ornament.

Related terms

• befurbelowed