lutestrings

Noun

lutestring (countable and uncountable, plural lutestrings)

1. (archaic) A plain, stout, lustrous silk, used for ladies' dresses and for ribbon.
   • There goes Mrs. Roundabout, I mean the fat lady in the luteſtring trollopee. Betvveen you and I, ſhe is but a cutler's vvife. See hovv ſhe's dreſſed, as fine as hands and pins can make her […]1759 October 24 (Gregorian calendar), [Oliver] Goldsmith, “On Dress”, in The Bee, a Select Collection of Essays, on the Most Interesting and Entertaining Subjects, […], new edition, number 2, London...
2. A type of moth with a band-like marking across the forewing, of the former taxonomic family Thyatiridae, also, the band-like marking.
   • There are six hook-tips and 10 in the lutestring group, which was formerly treated as a separate family, Thyatiridae.2015, Chris Manley, British Moths, page 196
3. The string of a lute.
   • More scrolls were wedged into the wall's pigeonholes, along with minature assemblages of circuitry and glass, a theramin wand, coils of lutestrings and ivory lute-keys, stacks of crystal discs, a broken gamelan.2010, George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, Songs of the Dying Earth: Short Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, page 461