lutestring

lutestring2 liu.tstrin. App. an alteration of lustring (which, however, appears later in our quots.), assimilated to prec. A ki nd of glossy silk fabric; a dress or a ribbon of this material.

1661 Pepys Diary 18 Feb., We went to a mercer's..and there she bought a suit of Lutestring for herself.
1686 Lond. Gaz. No. 2126/4 To be sold. .a parcel of very good black narrow Lute-Strings, and Alamode-Silks.
1704 Pope Lett. (1736) V. 124 Think of flouncing the petticoat so very deep, that it looks like an entire coat of lute-string!
1767 Woman of F ashion I. 78 She was dressed in a flowing Negligee of white Lutestring.
1799 G. Smith Laboratory II. 46 To draw a pattern for a silver brocade lutestring.
1856 Mrs. Browning Aur. Leigh vi. 715 A s if you had..held your trailing lutestring up yourself.
1887 Macm. Mag. LV. 108 A suit of white lutestring trimmed with large bunches of acorns.

to speak in lutestring

to speak in lut estring: (meaning uncertain).

The phrase `which I met with in the course of my reading' is several times derisively quoted by Junius as used by the Duke of Grafton. Cf. quot. a 1797 in c.

1771 Junius L ett. xlviii. 250, I was led to trouble you with these observations by a passage, which, to speak in lutestring, I met with this morning in the course of my reading.

c. attrib.

1759 Compl. Lett.-writer (ed. 6) 222 Dressed in a white lutestring gown and petticoat.
1768 C'tess Cowper Let. to Mrs. Delany in Mrs. D.'s Life & Corr; Ser. ii. I. 186 Lord Spencer had a pale blue lutestring domino.
A. 1797 H. Walpole Mem. Geo. III. (1845) I. xiv. 210 He [Chas. Townshend] had said of the last arrangement before Fox was set at the head, that it was a pretty lutestring administration which would do very well for summer wear.