Verdugale

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A hooped framework worn beneath a skirt to hold it out wide, popular in Tudor and Elizabethan fashion
2. An archaic stiffened hoop garment worn under a gown to give the skirt a broad, bell-like shape
3. Historically, a wide underskirt supported by hoops or bands, used in early modern European dress

Etymology: Before it named a stiff skirt, the Spanish "verdugo" meant a green shoot or young twig, the kind of pliant rod that can be bent into a hoop. The Spanish adjective "verdugado" described anything fitted with such hoops, and the garment takes its name from that. The hoops were often made of cane, whalebone, or wood, and they held the skirt out wide at the hips, sometimes so far that wearers had to turn sideways through doorways. English adopted the item through French, which had its own form, "vertugadin." The English spelling shifted over time, and the modern "farthingale" is a later refashioning of that older form.

Synonyms: farthingale, verdingale