doily

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English[edit]

lace doily (sense 1)

Alternative forms[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Doiley, the name of a 17th-century London draper. The surname is Anglo-Norman, from d’Œuilly, name of several places in Calvados, from Old French oeil (“eye”).

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): /ˈdɔɪli/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun[edit]

doily (plural doilies)

  1. A small ornamental piece of lace or linen or paper used to protect a surface from scratches by hard objects such as vases or bowls; or to decorate a plate of food.
    • 1920, Sinclair Lewis, Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, →OCLC:
      She looked polite, and observed the oiled floors, hard-wood staircase, unused fireplace with tiles which resembled brown linoleum, cut-glass vases standing upon doilies, and the barred, shut, forbidding unit bookcases that were half filled with swashbuckler novels and unread-looking sets of Dickens, Kipling, O. Henry, and Elbert Hubbard.
    • 1956, John Betjeman, “How to Get On in Society”, in Nancy Mitford, editor, Noblesse Oblige, page 159:
      Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys / With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.
  2. (Judaism) A similar circular piece of lace worn as a head-covering by some married Jewish women.
  3. (obsolete) An old kind of woollen material.

Translations[edit]

Further reading[edit]

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