Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- a hoop skirt or framework for expanding a woman’s skirt, worn in the 16th and 17th centuries.
noun
- a hoop or framework worn under skirts, esp in the Elizabethan period, to shape and spread them
1550s, from Middle French verdugale, from Spanish verdugado “hooped, hooped skirt,” from verdugo “rod, stick, young shoot of a tree,” from verde “green,” from Latin viridis (see verdure). Originally made from cane hoops or rods.