neckcloth
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Noun
neckcloth (plural neckcloths)
- (historical) An ornamental cravat, usually white.
- 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, London: W. Taylor, 3rd edition, p. 144,[1]
- […] I did remember I had among the Seamens Cloaths which were sav’d out of the Ship, some Neckcloaths of Callicoe or Muslin; and with some Pieces of these I made three small Sieves, but proper enough for the Work […]
- 1720, John Gay, “Tuesday; or, the Ditty” in Poems on Several Occasions, London: H. Lintot, R. Tonson & S. Draper, 1745, Volume I, p. 85,[2]
- 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, Volume I, Chapter 9, p. 115,[3]
- He was a man of such rigid refinement, that he would have starved rather than have dined without a white neck-cloth.
- 1850, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, Chapter 15, p. 157,[4]
- 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, Part I, Chapter 7,[5]
- It was not until Lestrade succeeded in getting his hand inside his neck-cloth and half-strangling him that we made him realise that his struggles were of no avail; and even then we felt no security until we had pinioned his feet as well as his hands.
- 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, London: W. Taylor, 3rd edition, p. 144,[1]