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jessamy

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“

Fancy a Boston publisher going about his business tricked up in this dandified dress -- a true New England jessamy.

—Customs and Fashions in Old New England

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Definitions (3)

American Heritage Dictionary

Century Dictionary (3)

The jasmine.
A dandy: so called, it is said, because it was a habit of fops to wear a sprig of jasmine in their buttonhole. My labour, however, was not without its reward; it recommended me to the notice of the ladies, and procured me the gentle appellation of Jessamy. Hawkesworth, Adventurer, No. 100.
Like jasmine in color or perfume. Towards evening, I took them out to the New Exchange, and there my wife bought things, and I did give each of them a pair of jesimy plain gloves, and another of white. Pepys, Diary, II. 482.

GNU Webster's 1913

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Examples (11)

There were also "jessamy" gloves--namely, kid gloves perfumed with jessamine; a black velvet mask; a superb painted fan; a box of patches, another of violet powder, another of rouge, and a fourth of pomatum; one of the India scarves before alluded to; a stomacher set with garnet, a pearl necklace, and a silver box full of cachou and can-away comfits, to be taken to church for amusement during long sermons. — The Maidens' Lodge None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne)
The lodging-houses are of course very numerous, and in every grade, from the humble jessamy or myrtle cottage at 20 or 30 shillings per week, to the lordly mansion at as many guineas During the latter summer months, the theatre is usually opened by a talented company of comedians. — Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight The Expeditious Traveller's Index to Its Prominent Beauties ; Objects of Interest. Compiled Especially with Reference to Those Numerous Visitors Who Can Spare but Two or Three Days to Make the Tour of the Island.
Fancy a Boston publisher going about his business tricked up in this dandified dress -- a true New England jessamy. — Customs and Fashions in Old New England
Is the rwose an 'the jessamy, where she did pluck — Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect
An 'jilliflow'rs, an' jessamy; — Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect

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A corruption of jessamine.

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