crinolines

Noun

crinoline (countable and uncountable, plural crinolines)

1. A stiff fabric made from cotton and horsehair.
2. A stiff petticoat made from this fabric.
   • These standards have not just been oppressive but deadly. In the nineteenth century, stiff crinoline petticoats puffed out skirts so far that the cheap materials often brushed against open flames and caught fire. This arbitrary convention of dress caused three thousand women to be burned alive.2022, W. David Marx, chapter 4, in Status and Culture, Viking, →ISBN
3. A skirt stiffened with hoops.
   • The various articles of a lady's apparel—dresses, skirts, crinolines, etc.—should be hung neatly away in the closet or wardrobe. The underclothing should be folded and placed in an orderly manner in the drawers of the dressing-bureau.1876, Eliza Bisbee Duffey, Our Behaviour: A Manual of Etiquette and Dress of the Best American Society, Philadelphia
4. Any of the hoops making up the framework used to support cladding over a boiler.
5. Netting placed around ships to guard against torpedoes.