placket

English

henley shirt with a front placket (sense 1)

Etymology

Either a variant of placard or borrowed from Middle French plaquette (“metal plate”), from plaquer (“to lay or clap on”). See placard.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈplækɪt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ækɪt

Noun

placket (plural plackets)

2. A slit or other opening in an item of clothing, to allow access to pockets or fastenings
   • 1922 February 2, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC:

     Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving. Biting her nether lip, hooking the placket of her skirt.

   • 2001, Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil:

     When the placket of his shirt gave way, the stones tore freely into the skin on his chest and back, and he no longer imagined Lucy Hartley enjoying his guitar serenades—he wondered if he would get to the roof alive.

3. (obsolete) A petticoat, especially an underpetticoat.
   • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iv], page 293, column 1:

     Is there no manners left among maids?VVill they
     vveare their plackets vvhere they ſhould bear their faces?

4. (obsolete, slang, by extension) A woman.
   • c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:

     […] : after this,the vengeance on the vvhole
     Camp,or rather,the bone-ach,for that,me thinkes is the
     curſe dependant on thoſe that vvarre for a placket.

   • 1647, John Fletcher, The Humorous Lieutenant‎^[1], London: H.N., 1697, act 4, scene 1, page 50:

     […] was that brave [hart] made to pant for a placket: and now i’th’ dog-days too, when nothing dare love!

5. (obsolete) A woman's pocket.
6. (historical) A leather jacket strengthened with strips of steel.
7. (historical) An additional plate of steel on the lower half of the breastplate or backplate.

   Synonyms: placcat, placcate

Derived terms

• placket hole