Falbala definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

“

Unknown ladies volunteered sprightly explanations of the technicalities of costume, from the falbala which adorned the bottom of their skirts, up to that little knot of riband in the hair, which had come to replace the old appalling edifice of ten stories high, in hierarchic succession of duchess, solitary, musketeer, crescent, firmament, tenth heaven, and mouse.

—Diderot and the Encyclopædists (Vol 1 of 2)

View all »
Examples (8)

Unknown ladies volunteered sprightly explanations of the technicalities of costume, from the falbala which adorned the bottom of their skirts, up to that little knot of riband in the hair, which had come to replace the old appalling edifice of ten stories high, in hierarchic succession of duchess, solitary, musketeer, crescent, firmament, tenth heaven, and mouse. — Diderot and the Encyclopædists (Vol 1 of 2)
I never heard such a request in my days!--Why, all the earth is begging to come to see it: as Edging says, I have had offers enough from blue and green ribands to make me a falbala-apron. — The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 3
Churchill, du cote du falbala, ne reussit pas mal; his sons, I am afraid, one of them at least, has — George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life
La monarchie en falbala. — Les Misérables
They made a brave show in many-colored splendor of attire, heavily scented with orange-flower water, civet-violet, or musk, with large falbala periwigs, or long, powdered duvilliers, with snuff-boxes and perspective glasses perpetually in their hands, and dragon or right Jamree canes, curiously clouded and amber headed, dangling by a blue ribbon from the wrist or the coat-button. — A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4)