bustle
3
9.9
- noun
- /ˈbʌsəl/
- Archaic
:
tournure (arcaico)
- The skirt is cowled in front with heavy drapery in back, creating a large bustle shape above a cascade of tiered ruffles.
- gown's bustle
- wearing a bustle
- bustle of my dress
Examples
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Four silhouettes dominate women's fashions during the period of 1880-1914: the bustle, the hourglass, the S-bend, and the empire silhouette.
Academic text (2012) -
Hallenbeck fails to note that by the 1890s, when bicycling became popular among women, bustles were small and the skirts clean and simple.
Academic text (2012) -
Sue wanted a bustle, the finest of course.
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It's like women wearing bustles.
-
Well, Sue got her bustle and it sure was classy.
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The costume will be complete with a dalmatian-print bustle skirt that I made myself.
Blog text (27) -
Her hoop and bustle were modest, and the dress was a tasteful cream color that accented the peach in her skin.
Fiction book (1997) -
Costumes were just exquisite, with Baldwin and Halaas in bustles, corsets, and hats perched on the edge of piled-high hair.
Blog text (21) -
Miss Compton-Divot, wearing a conventional English gown with bustle, sash, and uplifted bosom, stepped shyly into the room, like a fawn emerging from the bracken to cross the public highway.
Fiction book (1992) -
The dress, a pale robin's-egg-blue silk, featured wide ruffled sleeves and a neat bustle in the back.
Surface Forms
Etymology
Bustle for the fashion item got its name because it makes a skirt 'stand out' at the back, creating a rounded shape or small 'bump'. That's why a clothing bustle is the pad or frame that gives a dress its outward shape behind the waist.