bonnet skewer
- noun
- Archaic
- She carefully pinned the flowers to her hat with a bonnet skewer.
Examples
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The bonnet skewer kept the slices of meat neatly stacked for roasting.
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The chef prefers using bonnet skewers for presentation.
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A decorative bonnet skewer added a touch of elegance to the presentation.
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She used a bonnet skewer to hold the flowers in place.
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The chef used a bonnet skewer to hold the sliced carrots together on the platter.
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She adorned her hat with a colorful flower using a bonnet skewer to secure it.
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For the buffet, he arranged the appetizers neatly with a bonnet skewer to keep them together.
Synonyms
A long rod used to hold meat while it cooks over a fire
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is directly built from 'bonnet' (a hat) + 'skewer' (a pointed pin), so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes a pin used in relation to a bonnet. Although 'skewer' is often used for food, the basic sense 'pointed rod/pin' extends naturally to holding decorations, making the composition predictable for B1 learners.
Etymology
Bonnet skewer may come from a simple picture: a thin, pointed stick used to pin things to a hat. A bonnet is a small hat and a skewer is a sharp stick that pushes through food or cloth, so the name came to mean 'a thin, pointed rod for securing decorations or holding food together'.