lappet

plural lappets

1. A small decorative fold or flap, especially of lace or muslin, in a garment or headdress.

   I have small breasts that lie flattened against the chest like lappets.

   1986, Hortense Calisher, The Bobby-Soxer, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Part 2, p. 122

   5 more examples

   Oout of hiz boozom drawn foorth a lappet of his napkin, edged with a blu la[c]e, and marked with a trulooue, a hart & a D, for Damian: for he waz but a bachelar yet.

   c. 1575, The Langham letter, page 47

   […] lifting up the Lappet of his Coat, he put me gently into it, and immediately ran along with me to his Master […]

   1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, (please specify |part=I to IV), page 161

   […] he was presently undrest, all to his shirt, the fore-lappet of which, as he lean’d languishingly on me, he smilingly pointed to me, to observe, as it bellied out, or rose, and fell, according to the unruly starts of the motion behind it:

   Fanny Hill

   1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC, pages 202-203

   He wears […] a white wig, the curls of which hang down like lappets over his shoulders, and form a good contrast with the plump, rosy, shining face beneath it.

   1815, William Hazlitt, “Mr. Harley’s Fidget”, in A View of the English Stage, London: John Warren, published 1821, page 139

   Her rich, becoming dress fitted her perfect shape most admirably, and Fanchette had never arranged her coiffure to more advantage; the rich lappet of blonde, carelessly tied under the chin, hid all the "defeatures time had made," without hiding the long white throat, for which she had always been remarkable, and was a beauty which had descended to all her daughters, even to the stigmatized Isabella.

   1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter XXXIX, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 192

2. biologyA wattle or flap-like structure on the face.

   Some vultures have lappets of bare flesh on the sides of the head.

   1 more example

   Tompot blennies are distinguished by a pair of lappets above the eyes and dark stripes along the body.

3. A head-dress made with lappets for lace pendants.
4. obsoleteanatomyA lobe (division of an organ).

   […] he ran him in with the spit a little above the navel, towards the right flank, till he pierced the third lappet of his liver,

   1653, Thomas Urquhart, transl., The First Book of the Works of Mr. Francis Rabelais, containing five books of the lives, heroick deeds and sayings of Gargantua, and his sonne Pantagruel, London: Richard Baddeley, Book 2, Chapter 14, p. 97

   1 more example

   In the tender lappet of the eare is supposed to rest the seat of remembrance, which we vse to touch when we mean to take one to beare witnesse of an arrest or other thing done,

   1634, Philemon Holland, transl., The History of the World: commonly called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus, London, Book 11, Chapter 45, p. 550

present singular third person lappets · participle present lappeting · participle past lappeted · past lappeted

1. transitiveTo decorate with, or as if with, lappets.

   I would fain merit your esteem, heedless of these pursy fellows from hulks and warehouses, with one ear lappetted by the pen behind it […]

   1824, Walter Savage Landor, “Oliver Cromwel and Walter Noble”, in Imaginary Conversations, volume 1, London: Taylor and Hessey, page 58