A Little Fun With Old Fashioned Hat Terms – Part Three – 1800 – 1900

I have discovered some obscure and unusual words as I look back on the history of hats and fascinators. Having recently finished reading THE PROFESSOR AND THE MAD (by Simon Winchester, HarperCollins 1998) about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary, I thought it would be fun to explore the definitions and etymology of some of these ancient terms, most of which have all but it disappeared from modern usage. [I’ll breakup this project into three or four parts, so stay tuned.]

To qualify for inclusion below, the word must appear with a wavy red line in Microsoft Word’s “spell check” tool. So here it goes:
[Note: As I move into part three of this project, terms become less lost in antiquity. I have included a few words, albeit rarely used today that did show up “spell check”.]

poke hat

Now hist.

1. A hood with a protruding edge, especially fashionable. in the XIX century.
1801 C. DIBDIN Song Smith in Mirth & Meter (1807) 62, I’ll make songs by staves please, Short as a new sight, or as long as a hood. 1820 F. MACDONOGH Hermit in London V. xcii. 35 Another street nuisance are the hat ladies, who sometimes gouge your eyes out with these penthouse projections. 1837 E. BULWER-LYTTON Ernest Maltravers II. IV. saw. 67 Some middle-aged ladies… wear… straw hats. 1858 RS SURTEES Ask Mamma ix, [A] lady… painted on one of the old poke hoods from back in the day. 1884 cent. magazine 28 14 Eight or nine ladies, gentlemen, and children, in the bonnets and high-collared coats of the year 1839. 1913 W. CATHER Oh, pioneers! I 12 This city girl wore what was then called the ‘Kate Greenaway’ style, … her little hat gave her the look of a quaint little woman. 1984 P. ALLEN Old Galleries of Cumbria (BNC) 18 Married women wore a cap, blue linen apron, neb-shaped clogs and buckled shoes for better wear, a bonnet and cloak for better dress.

2.spec. Cap of this type traditionally worn by women members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the Salvation Army, etc. Therefore: a user of this type of hat.
1848 JR BARTLETT dictation. Americanisms sv, Poke-bonnet, a long straight cap, much worn by Quakers and Methodists. 1862 H. MARRYAT A year in Sweden II. lvi. 264 We dined on a farm… owned by the Anabaptists, the largest sect in Götland. You can’t mistake the women for their downcast looks and black beanies. 1877 Saturday. Rev. 12 May 577/2 In Croydon, Dorking and other Friends favorite haunts, wide brimmed hats for men and closed caps for women can still be seen. 1899 Gas from St. James. Aug 17 2/11 Never reached by the Church,…or any other spiritual organization, except possibly the ‘pocket bonnets’ on the street corners. 1902 E. BANKS Autobiogr. The girl from the newspaper 107 The dark blue hat and dress, which I thought I wouldn’t get until I spent a few days researching the best way to join the army. 1945 Musical Q. 31 276 Amish women are easily identified by their bonnets, shawls, and a complete lack of adornment in their attire. 2000 Sunday Herald (Glasgow) (Nexis) 14 May 36 A Pennsylvania Amish in a bonnet goes next, happy as a bug.

Top-hat

F. Gibus the name of the first manufacturer.]

An opera or crush hat. Also gibus-hat.
1848 THACKERAY BOOK. Snobs xviii, with his gibus-hat and his little glazed high-heeled shoes. a1854 E. FORBES Lit. Papers viii. (1855) 214 No man on a gibus ever commanded public or private respect. 1888 Diary Tel. 28 April 5/2 The collapsible crushable hat or Gibus.

[Note from Belinsky: Today a Gibus is more commonly known as a “Collapsible Top Hat”.]

riding cap

[Fr.; fem. of casquet, dim. of casque CASQUE.]

A helmet-like headdress.
1840 LS COSTELLO Sum. between Bocages II. 206 Her long tresses were confined by an oriental-looking cap.

[a. F. casque, ad. Sp. casco in same sense: see CASK n.]

1. A piece of armor to cover the head; a helmet. A term very loosely applied to all manner of military headgear, and now only historical, poetic, or foreign. Formerly written BARREL.
1580-1649 [see CASK n. 4]. 1696 PHILLIPS, Helmet, a helmet. 1714 GAY CURIOSITIES III. 363 The fireman sweats under his crooked arms, A leather helmet defends his ventral head. 1791 COWPER Iliad III. 375 They shook them in a bronze helmet. 1842 TENNYSON Galahad 1 My good sword carves the helmets of men. 1877 Daily News Dec 24 5/4 The miter-shaped helmets of the Pauloff Guard regiment.

wield headband

[Fr.: OF. bandel, dim. form from bande BAND n.2; cf. BANDORE2.]

A. Narrow band or filet used by women to hold their hair or as part of a headdress. b. A bandage for the eyes.
1706 T. BETTERTON Loving Widow I. 4 The fairest Hair, the fairest Curls do not become your Forehead, so well as a Bando did. c1790 F. BURNEY Diary (1842) I. 98 (D.) That bandeau…was worn by all the women at court. a1847 MRS. SHERWOOD Lady of Manor III. XXI. 277 Just make this headband for my hair. ?1858 C. MATHEWS Autobiog. (1879) I, In a laced nightcap with sky-blue band. 1861 GEN. P. THOMPSON Audi Alt. 3rd cxi. 175 The Chancellor of the Exchequer, as Paul Louis of Fortune said, sees under his bandeau. 1908 [see BARRETTE 2]. 1959 Sunday Times April 5. 5/22 As small as it is possible to be and still be called a hat, headband and bow are trapped in a veil cage.

against Strip of velvet or other material usually made in a circular shape to be sewn inside the bottom of the crown of a hat that is too large for the head.
1908 Journal Chron. Jan 29 4/7 With the right kind of ‘headband’…you don’t need to wear a pin at all.

Straw Sennit

Naut.
[var. of SINNET.]

A. = SINNET. b. (See diary 1858.)
1769 FALCONER Dec. Navy (1789), Sennit. 1858 SIMMONDS dictation. Trade, Sennit, … braided straw or palm leaves, etc., from which grass hats are made. 1881 Checkered Race 92 These young gentlemen can be seen… sennetting, this latter diversion being on a par with collecting tow.
attribute and comb. 1882 NARES Seamanship (ed. 6) 79 It works on a sensitive eye. c1898 J. CHALMERS in Lovett Life (1902) 146 The long sennit hawser kept on deck had been passed ashore to the reef natives.

[Note from Belinsky: Today, a Sennit Straw is more commonly know as a “Boater” or “Skimmer” or “Sailor Straw”.]

huntsman

Now hist.
[Cadogan

[Said to be from the name of the 1st Earl Cadogan (died 1726). See Littré, and N. & Q. 7th Ser. IV. 467, 492.]

A way to tie the hair behind the head.
c1780 B’NESS OF OBERKIRCH Mem. (1852) II. ix, The Duchess of Bourbon had presented at the court of Montbéliard..[the fashion] of cadogans, hitherto worn only by gentlemen.

postman hat

Now mainly hist.
[Puggree

[a. Hind. pag a turban.]

1. A light turban or head covering worn by the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent.
1665 SIR T. HERBERT Trav. (1677) 140 Oriental people… such as wearing turbans, mandils, dustars, and puggarees. 1696 J. OVINGTON I go. Suratt 314 with a Puggarie or turban on their heads. 1698 FRYER Acc. E. India & P. ​​93 A Green Vest and Puckery (or Turbat). 1845 SIR W. NAPIER Conq. Division II. Yo. 224 The Mohamedan Belooch always obeys whoever wears the Puggree. 1893 W. FORBES-MITCHELL Remin. gt. Mutiny 287 The latter wore thick, voluminous breeches around their heads. 1930 Aberdeen Press & Jrnl. 22 Apr 2/5 Has no British officers or uniform except for a distinctive type of pagri (headdress). 1930 Punch 1 Oct. 392/2 Mr. Thompson should not allow this bee to find a permanent home in his pagri. 1974 ‘b. MATHER’ White Dacoit 18 Sowars smooth tunics and pagris.

2. A fine muslin scarf or silk veil wrapped around the crown of a helmet or sunhat and falling behind like a shadow.
1859 DICKENS in All Year 30 Jul 332/1 A ‘Puggery’ is a long slip of white muslin which is tied around the hat and formed into a fantastic bow, with tails behind. 1866 Cornh. magazine Dec. 741 A silk coat, a puggree, boots, and white laces adorned the richest. 1885 Times February 20. 6/1 Officers and men were drawn in red serge tunics,… sun helmets and puggarees. 1901 B. SHAW Three Plays for Purit., Capt. Brassbound I. 215 Wear the sun and pagri helmet, neutral colored glasses, and white canvas shoes for sand.

3. attribute, such as puggree-cloth.
1934 [see DRILL n.5]. 1978 ‘MM KAYE’ Far Pavilions vi. 98 She slept soundly… tied to him by a piece of pagri (turban) cloth that prevented her from falling off.

Therefore pugg(a)reed a., covered or wearing a puggree.
1881 Mrs. C. PRAED Policy & PI 13 A wide-brimmed puggareed hat. 1900 Daily News August 1. 3/1 A graceful flick of her soft green slouch hat, from puggareed.

Convertible

[a. F. cabriolet, deriv. of cabriole, so called from its elastic bounding motion.]

1st A lightweight two-wheeled horse-drawn saddle, having a large wooden or leather canopy and a wide apron to cover the occupant’s lap and legs. Contracted by 1830 to CAB, and in later times applied to any vehicle known by that name. Also, the upper or open section of a carriage. b. A car with fixed sides and a folding top.

2. Cap or hat in the shape of a convertible.
1771 H. WALPOLE Let. July 31 (1904) 63, I have ordered two convertibles, instead of six, because they seem very expensive to me. 1923 Daily Mail 22 Jun 11 Cabriolet hats are in style again… With a cabriolet you should have streamers of ribbon falling over one shoulder.

marcel onda

[Psyche Knot

[a. Gr. (in L. ps ch ) breath, f. to breathe, to blow, (later) to cool; hence, life (identified with or indicated by the breath); the animating principle in man and other living beings, the source of all vital activities, rational or irrational, the soul or spirit, in distinction from its material vehicle, the or body; sometimes considered as capable of persisting in a disembodied state after separation from the body at death.

In Mythology, personified as in 1c. By Plato and other philosophers extended to the anima mundi, conceived to animate the general system of the universe, as the soul animates the individual organism. By St. Paul (developing a current Jewish distinction between rua , , spirit or breath, and nephesh, , soul) used for the lower or merely natural life of man, shared with other animals, in contrast with the or spirit, conceived as a higher element due to divine influence supervening upon the original constitution of unregenerate human nature: see PSYCHIC a. 2, PSYCHICAL 2. (For this and other developments in pre-Christian Judaism, and the N.T. writings, see R. H. Charles, Hist. of the Doctrine of a Future Life, 1899.)]

1. The soul, or spirit, as distinguished from the body; the mind.
1658 SIR T. BROWNE Hydriot. IV. 61 Why the Psyche or soul of Tiresias is masculine. 1794 SULLIVAN See Nat. II. 279 The two essential elements in the composition of all sublunary things were, by the ancient Greeks, called psyche and hyle, that is, spiritus and matter, soul and body. 1877 tr. Virchow in Tyndall Fragm. Sc. (1879) II. xvi. 407 If I explain attraction and repulsion as displays of the mind, as psychic phenomena, I simply throw Psyche out the window, and Psyche ceases to be Psyche. 1879 LEWES study psychology. 73 The most accredited [ancient] the thinkers not only separated Man from Nature, but also Mind from the Organism; they invented a psyche as the source of all mental phenomena. 1888 New Princeton Rev. Mar. 272 ​​Psychology is the science of the psyche or soul. 1896 P. GARDNER Sculptured Tombs Hellas 24 The psyche, for Homer, does not in the least resemble the Christian soul, but is a shadowy double of man, lacking in strength and wisdom alike. 1905 EJ DILLON in Contemp. Rev. Aug. 287 It is difficult to realize the position and to imagine the psyche of Rozhdestvensky [the Russian admiral who fired on the North Sea fishing fleet].

b. The animating principle of the universe as a whole, the soul of the world or anima mundi.
1647 H. MAS Song of the Soul Notes 138/2 Such is the entry of Psyche into the body of the Vniverse, igniting and exciting the dead mist. 1678 CUDWORTH Intelligence. IV system §twenty-one. 388 This is taken by Plotinus to be the Eternal Psyche, actively producing All Things, in this Lower World, in accordance with those Divine Ideas. Ibid. §23. 406 But in other places… she frequently affirms, above the Psyche that she moves by herself, an immovable and permanent Nous or Intellect, which was properly the Demiurge.

against In later Greek myth, personified as the beloved of Eros (Cupid or Amor), and depicted in artwork with butterfly wings, or as a butterfly; known in literature as the heroine of the story told in The Golden Ass of Apuleius. Therefore attributed in the sense ‘like Psyche’, as in Psyche-knot (of hair), Psyche-mold, Psyche-task.
1876 ​​Geo. ELIO Dan. Last. lxi, In the psyche mold of Mirah’s body rested a fervent quality of emotion that was sometimes recklessly assumed to require the bulk of a Cleopatra. 1888 AR DIEHL Two Thousand Words 170 Psyche knot, the style of wearing the hair in a projecting roll in the middle of the back of the head. 1895 SB KENNEDY in Outing (USA) Oct 8/2 Do you think this knot of psyche suits the special cut of my features? 1901 Westm. Gas. May 28 4/2 After many fate-imposed psyche tasks, they now unravel, hoping there is nothing more to do. 1904 Ibid. Nov 30 2/4, I’m not too sure I know what ‘a psyche knot’ is, which was what the lady’s jet black hair turned into. 1968 J. UPDIKE Couples c. 404 her hair was up in a psyche bun.

Fred Belinski

http://www.VillageHatShop.com