Frontelet

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A narrow band or small ornament worn across the forehead, often as decoration or as a religious or ceremonial item
2. A strip of cloth, metal or leather fastened over the brow, sometimes worn as an adornment or as a sacred object
3. A decorative band fixed across the front of the head, traditionally used as an ornament or ritual marker

Etymology: A frontelet is a narrow band worn across the forehead, and the word is simply a diminutive built from "front" with the suffix "-let." English has used "-let" since the Middle Ages, borrowed through Old French from the Latin diminutive "-ellus," to mark something small: a booklet is a little book, a piglet a little pig. Frontelet follows the same pattern, meaning a little front, or a small piece of the forehead's covering. The word is rare and mostly appears in older dictionaries and in discussions of dress and headgear, where it names a band of cloth, metal, or jewelry worn across the brow, sometimes called a frontlet. The "front" element traces back to Latin "frons," meaning forehead, which also gave English "frontal" and "affront," the latter originally meaning a blow to the face.

Synonyms: frontlet