Lutestring
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A plain, stout, lustrous silk, used for ladies' dresses and for ribbon. archaic, countable, uncountable
"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 […]"
- 2 A type of moth with a band-like marking across the forewing, of the former taxonomic family Thyatiridae, also, the band-like marking. countable, uncountable
"There are six hook-tips and 10 in the lutestring group, which was formerly treated as a separate family, Thyatiridae."
- 3 The string of a lute. countable, uncountable
"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."
Example
More examples"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 […]"
Etymology
Corrupted form of French lustring, probably influenced by lute.
More for "lutestring"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.