Jack in the green

plural Jacks in the green · alternative Jack-in-the-green · alternative Jack o' the Green

1. historicalA person who wore a pyramidal or conical wicker or wooden framework decorated with foliage, as part of May Day processions in England.

   1 more example

   Mr Merdle took down a countess who was secluded somewhere in the core of an immense dress, to which she was in the proportion of the heart to the overgrown cabbage. If so low a simile may be admitted, the dress went down the staircase like a richly brocaded Jack in the Green, and nobody knew what sort of small person carried it.

   1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC