| Library / English Dictionary |
FINERY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Elaborate or showy attire and accessories
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("finery" is a kind of...):
attire; dress; garb (clothing of a distinctive style or for a particular occasion)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "finery"):
Sunday best; Sunday clothes (the best attire you have which is worn to church on Sunday)
Context examples:
A bride, you know, must appear like a bride, but my natural taste is all for simplicity; a simple style of dress is so infinitely preferable to finery.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
The families who had been in town for the winter came back again, and summer finery and summer engagements arose.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
The luggage has come, and I've been making hay of Amy's Paris finery, trying to find some things I want, said Laurie, coming in the next day to find Mrs. Laurence sitting in her mother's lap, as if being made 'the baby' again.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Her love of dirt gave way to an inclination for finery, and she grew clean as she grew smart; she had now the pleasure of sometimes hearing her father and mother remark on her personal improvement.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
Mr. Rushworth liked the idea of his finery very well, though affecting to despise it; and was too much engaged with what his own appearance would be to think of the others, or draw any of those conclusions, or feel any of that displeasure which Maria had been half prepared for.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
Selina's choice—handsome, I think, but I do not know whether it is not over-trimmed; I have the greatest dislike to the idea of being over-trimmed—quite a horror of finery.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
A little upstart, vulgar being, with her Mr. E., and her caro sposo, and her resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have no taste for finery or parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby, and very inferior to her own.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
