tiffany

See also: Tiffany

English

Etymology

From an Anglo-Norman common name for the festival of the Epiphany. See Tiffany.

Noun

tiffany (countable and uncountable, plural tiffanies)

  1. A kind of gauze, or very thin silk.
    • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 2nd edition, London: Edw. Dod & Nath. Ekins, Book 6, Chapter 12, p. 284,
      […] the smoak of sulphur will not black paper, and is commonly used by Women to whiten Tiffanies […]
    • 1721, Robert Samber, A Treatise of the Plague, London: James Holland et al., Chapter 1, p. 8,
      Reduce all to a very fine Powder, searsing the same through a Tiffany Searse, as you should the former.
    • 1792, Hannah Cowley, A Day in Turkey; or, the Russian Slaves, London: G.G.J. & J. Robinson, Act III, Scene 1, p. 34,
      […] he made me throw away my peasant weeds, and gave me all these fine cloaths. See this tiffany, all spotted with silver; look at this beautiful turban—He gave it me all!
    • 1903, E. Bartrum, The Book of Pears and Plums, London: John Lane, p. 34,
      Frost is another foe. Cordons might be protected by hoops covered with tiffany, Russian canvas, mats, or netting; bushes by nets, mats, etc.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for tiffany in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

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