agraffe

plural agraffes · alternative agrafe

1. A decorated clasp consisting of a hook which fastens onto a ring, similar to hook and eye, used in armor or in ordinary clothing.

   A young girl is about to join together on her left shoulder the chiton, which is fastened over the right shoulder by means of an agraffe.

   1884, Levi Walter Yaggy, Thomas Louis Haines, Museum of Antiquity: A Description of Ancient Life, Madison, Wis.: J.B. Furman & Co

   3 more examples

   The feather of an ostrich, fastened in her turban by an agraffe set with brilliants, was another distinction of the beautiful Jewess, scoffed and sneered at by the proud dames who sat above her, but secretly envied by those who affected to deride them.

   1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC

   […]the lumbering efforts of old Sir Henry to be as young and gay as his wife, in spite of gout and portliness; and the extreme delight of his lady in her new splendours—a gold spotted muslin and white plumes in a diamond agraffe.

   1886, Charlotte Mary Yonge, Chantry House

   Striking out with his fists at two or three men who barred the way, he suddenly stood confronting these miscreants, the light of the torch glowing on the rich silk of his doublet, the jewelled agraffe of his hat, his proud, serious face almost distorted by overwhelming wrath.

   1901, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], The Tangled Skein, London: Greening & Co., published 1907, →OCLC

2. architectureA carved keystone, usually decorated with a mascaron or a corbel, often used in Classical architecture.
3. entertainmentA brass fitting, screwed into a piano plate, that positions the strings vertically and laterally, and defines one end of the string's speaking length.