Word.ws English Dictionary

furbelow

UK/ˈfəː.bɪ.ləʊ//ˈfɚ.bɪ.loʊ/

furbelow noun: a frill, flounce, or ruffle, as on clothing; a decorative piece of fabric, especially one gathered or pleated as into a ruffle, etc.

Noun

furbelow (plural furbelows)

  1. A frill, flounce, or ruffle, as on clothing; a decorative piece of fabric, especially one gathered or pleated as into a ruffle, etc.
    • I do not think that from the blissful time when I was sixteen, up to my present solemn five-and-thirty, I could ever have been tempted to look a second time at any miss under the chaperonship of such a dame as that feather and furbelow lady.1839, Frances Trollope, chapter I, in The Widow Barnaby. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 24–25
    • All the other furbelows, and portions of this one^([this Medusa]) that lay below the expansion, floated as usual through the water, except that on some occasions an accessory power was obtained by pressing a portion of another furbelow to the side of the glass and making it adhere just like the...1863, John George Wood, The Illustrated Natural History, page 745
  2. (broadly) A small, showy ornamentation.
    • Within, among the bric-a-brac and furbelows, he found Miss Painter seated in a redundant purple armchair with the incongruous air of a horseman bestriding a heavy mount.1912, Edith Wharton, The Reef, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company
    • The band played ceaselessly. Even when the other instruments were resting the pianist kept up his monotonous vamping, with a dreary furbelow for embellishment here and there, to which some few of the dancers continued to shuffle round the floor.1954, Alexander Alderson, chapter 4, in The Subtle Minotaur

Verb

furbelow (third-person singular simple present furbelows, present participle furbelowing, simple past and past participle furbelowed)

  1. (transitive) To adorn with a furbelow; to ornament.
    • Mrs. Palmer, and her furbelowed daughters-in-law, who will probably carry enough of the scarlet fever about them, to remind you unpleasantly of the officiousness which preserved the lives of three daughters, when two might have been parted with advantageously enough.1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “(please specify the page)”, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC...

Examples of furbelow in a sentence

  • “Well, I don’t know that fifty is much for a dress, with all the furbelows and notions you have to have to finish it off these days.”1869, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, Little Women: […], 2nd part, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, →OCLC:
  • Winterbourne stood looking after her; and as she moved away, drawing her muslin furbelows over the gravel, said to himself that she had the tournure of a princess.1879, Henry James, Daisy Miller, London: Harper & Brothers:
  • Those dresses are good, sensible, serviceable dresses, without any frills or furbelows about them, and they’re all you’ll get this summer.1908 June, L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues] Page & Company, →OCLC:

Forms of furbelow

Noun
pluralfurbelows
Verb
third-person singular presentfurbelows
present participlefurbelowing
past participlefurbelowed
pastfurbelowed

Origin of furbelow

Corruption of falbala; first attested in the late 1600s or early 1700s. Not related to fur.

Words formed from furbelow

Questions about furbelow

What does furbelow mean?
Furbelow means a frill, flounce, or ruffle, as on clothing; a decorative piece of fabric, especially one gathered or pleated as into a ruffle, etc.
How do you use furbelow in a sentence?
“Well, I don’t know that fifty is much for a dress, with all the furbelows and notions you have to have to finish it off these days.”
What part of speech is furbelow?
Furbelow can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce furbelow?
Furbelow is pronounced /ˈfəː.bɪ.ləʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of furbelow?
The plural of furbelow is furbelows.

Words near furbelow in the dictionary

  1. furbearer
  2. furbearers
  3. furbearing
  4. Furbee
  5. Furbees
  6. furbelow
  7. furbelowed
  8. furbelowing
  9. furbelows
  10. Furbies
  11. furbish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: furbelow (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-furbelow.ogg.

Cite this entry: “furbelow.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/furbelow. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.