pocket-handkerchief
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: pocket-handkerchiefs
form: pocket-handkerchieves
Senses: examples: text: Here Mrs. Higgs paused for a moment, and drew out a huge red pocket-handkerchief, with which her face was for some minutes confounded.
ref: 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 124:
text: Sheets, tablecloths, white gowns, and pocket-handkerchiefs were instantly in demand, and every one, as has been seen, entered, con amore, into the extempore entertainment of Pandemonic Revels.
ref: 1833 January, “Pandemonic Revels”, in The Royal Lady’s Magazine, and Archives of the Court of St. James’s, number XXV, London, page 15:
text: Mr. Mantalini waited with much decorum to hear the amount of the proposed stipend, but when it reached his ears, he cast his hat and cane upon the floor, and drawing out his pocket-handkerchief, gave vent to his feelings in a dismal moan.
ref: 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, “Wherein Mr. Ralph Nickleby is Visited by Persons with Whom the Reader has been Already Made Acquainted”, in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 324:
text: ‘I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never without a pocket-handkerchief. But it is not to this fact that I now especially advert.’
ref: 1842, Edgar Allan Poe, The Mystery of Marie Rogêt:
text: […] I groped from step to step, collecting the shattered earthenware, and drying the spatters of milk from the banister with my pocket-handkerchief.
ref: 1847, Emily Brontë, chapter 13, in Wuthering Heights:
text: And as for the separation scene from the child, while Becky was reciting it, Emmy retired altogether behind her pocket-handkerchief, so that the consummate little tragedian must have been charmed to see the effect which her performance produced on her audience.
ref: 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter LXVI, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:
text: P.C. Phillips took prisoner into custody, and found the money in his possession, and several pocket-handkerchieves, which had been missed some weeks before.
ref: 1868 September 8, “Police News”, in The Cambria Daily Leader, number 2,258, page 3, column 4:
text: There was but little discord between church and chapel, except at treat-times, and on kindred occasions of exceptional excitement; and every Sunday evening church dames, duly equipped with Rippon’s Selection, an unopened pocket-handkerchief, and a sprig of boy’s love, might be seen marching, like any chapelers, to Zoar.
ref: 1876, Edward Whitaker, “Tempus est Ludendi”, in Parley Magna. A Novel., volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], page 57:
text: The election of General Harrison is the triumph of the national over the sectional idea; of the great over the little, of the standard of a powerful country over the pocket-handkerchieves of an elderly politician; and all that is needed to bring about the general prosperity of the whole country of one section as much as another, is an intelligent appreciation of what has happened.
ref: 1888 November 15, The Abilene Weekly Chronicle, volume XIX, number 34, Abilene, Kan., page [8], column 3:
text: She laughed […] while she flirted a soiled pocket-handkerchief at him.
ref: 1891, Henry James, The Pupil^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page%3AThe_Lesson_of_the_Master%2C_The_Marriages%2C_The_Pupil%2C_Brooksmith%2C_The_Solution%2C_Sir_Edmund_Orme_(New_York_%26_London%2C_Macmillan_%26_Co.%2C_1892).djvu/155), page 141:
text: He wore curious clothes, not like most gentlemen, but all wool things, even to his collars and his boots, which were soft and soppy like felt; and he took snuff to that degree I wouldn’t have believed any human nose could have borne it, and he must have been a great trial to Mrs. Oliver until she got used to him and his pottering about all over the house in his soft-soled shoes; and the mess he made of his pocket-handkerchieves and his linen!
ref: 1896, E[dith] Nesbit, “Guilty”, in In Homespun, London: John Lane, […]; Boston, Mass.: Roberts Bros., page 128:
text: An enormous man and woman (it was early-closing day) were stretched motionless, with their heads on pocket-handkerchiefs, side by side, within a few feet of the sea, while two or three gulls gracefully skirted the incoming waves, and settled near their boots.
ref: 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC:
text: The 63 year-old Cratzbarg is known for his flamboyant personality and style, with his signature black-framed glasses, big watches and a silk pocket-handkerchief.
ref: 2014 April 26, Julia McKay, “Scents and sensibility”, in The Kingston Whig-Standard, page A2:
text: He wore a baggy tuxedo with a white pocket-handkerchief.
ref: 2015 January 13, Mark Swed, “Still perplexing and astounding”, in Los Angeles Times, page E4:
glosses: Alternative form of pocket handkerchief.