lutestring

plural lutestrings

1. archaiccountableuncountableA plain, stout, lustrous silk, used for ladies' dresses and for ribbon.

   A dressing chemise of Tiffany which she had on over a blue lutestring

   1784, Abagail Adams, cited in David McCullough, John Adams, page 305

   2 more examples

   There goes Mrs. Roundabout, I mean the fat lady in the luteſtring trollopee. Betvveen you and I, ſhe is but a cutler's vvife. See hovv ſhe's dreſſed, as fine as hands and pins can make her […]

   1759 October 24 (Gregorian calendar), [Oliver] Goldsmith, “On Dress”, in The Bee, a Select Collection of Essays, on the Most Interesting and Entertaining Subjects, […], new edition, number 2, London: […] W[illiam] Lane, […], published c. 1790, →OCLC

   Lord, I have ſuch a deal to do, I ſhall ſcarce have time to ſlip on my Italian luteſting.—VVhere is this davvdle of a houſekeeper?

   1766, George Colman, David Garrick, The Clandestine Marriage, a Comedy. […], London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, […]; R[oberts] Baldwin, […]; R. Davis, […]; and T[homas] Davies, […], →OCLC, Act I, page 13

2. countableuncountableA type of moth with a band-like marking across the forewing, of the former taxonomic family Thyatiridae, also, the band-like marking.

   These specimens have the "lutestrings" of or, and the "figure of 80" characteristic of octogessima.

   2023, Richard South, The Moths of the British Isles

   3 more examples

   There are six hook-tips and 10 in the lutestring group, which was formerly treated as a separate family, Thyatiridae.

   2015, Chris Manley, British Moths, page 196

   A quartet of moths in the subfamily Thyatirinae, known collectively as lutestrings – of which the spring-flying Frosted Green and Yellow Horned are also members.

   2021, James Lowen, British Moths: A Gateway Guide, page 75

   Other lutestrings (3 spp., each in its own genus [n/i]), which do not have black spot on forewing and lack the black dash on wingtip.

   2021, Paul D. Brock, Britain's Insects, page 429

3. countableuncountableThe string of a lute.

   Seventeen shillings went on replacement lutestrings for Elizabeth herself. Her greatest pleasures were playing her lute or virginals, reading or sewing.

   2011, Alison Weir, Children of England: The Heirs of King Henry VIII 1547-1558, page 131

   4 more examples

   More scrolls were wedged into the wall's pigeonholes, along with minature assemblages of circuitry and glass, a theramin wand, coils of lutestrings and ivory lute-keys, stacks of crystal discs, a broken gamelan.

   2010, George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, Songs of the Dying Earth: Short Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, page 461

   When, I say, that the motion of an Object is imprest upon a Corporeal Organ, I would not have it understood that the motion, for example, of the Eye is only made there, but that it passess up to the Brain, from whence the Fibres of the Nerves, like Lutestrings in a Lute, are stretcht out to other Members.

   2013, Simo Knuuttila, Juha Sihvola, Sourcebook for the History of the Philosophy of Mind, page 90

   Wondering how else he passed his time, Winifred surveyed the room again, this time without regard for the monetary value of the things she saw. A box of lutestrings. Five songbooks. But no lute.

   2019, Emerson Kathy Lynn, How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries

   Henry VIII. and his daughters Mary and Elizabeth are said to have been good lutenists. The smaller gut strings, called by the pleasant name of minnikins, were easily broken, and a gift of lutestrings was considered a present fit for a queen, and one which the great Elizabeth did not disdain.

   2020, Francis Darwin, Springtime and Other Essays, page 43