Farthingdales

Part of speech: INVALID

Definitions

1. A type of hooped understructure worn beneath skirts to give them a wide or rounded shape ; alternatively, a term sometimes used for large open fields or stretches of land
2. Referring to a stiffened petticoat used to create a voluminous silhouette in a dress ; or, less commonly, describing expansive tracts of countryside
3. Describes a framework that supports and shapes skirts into a flared or bell-like form ; in rare usage, also denotes broad, unenclosed areas of land

Etymology: "Farthingdales" is simply the plural of "farthingdale," a hooped skirt frame worn in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The singular is the word that carries the etymology, and its history reaches back to the Anglo-French "verdingale" and Spanish "verdugado," both naming the padded hoops that gave a skirt its shape.