How to Use petticoat in a Sentence

petticoat

noun
  • Her lacy petticoat and bodice showed up dead white in the light of the blazing fire.
    Washington Post, 24 May 2023
  • It's made from a smaller petticoat that came out of a prom dress.
    Andrea Reeves, Cincinnati.com, 30 Apr. 2020
  • There was an imprint of Irene's petticoat found on the banks of the canal and a partial heel print from a man's shoe.
    CBS News, 27 Jan. 2018
  • Like southern belles’ petticoats Soon gone with the wind.
    John Kelly, Washington Post, 3 Apr. 2018
  • Cut into petticoat tails and enjoy with a cup of strong black tea.
    Beth Segal, cleveland, 3 Feb. 2022
  • And then the score: frilly dresses with petticoats for her and her three older sisters.
    René A. Guzman, ExpressNews.com, 11 Oct. 2019
  • Next, Joubert steers me to a display of store mannequins in petticoats.
    Gregory Barber, WIRED, 6 June 2019
  • The skirt dragging behind her looks like a petticoat that's been through an apocalypse, burned to its frame.
    Molly Glentzer, Houston Chronicle, 17 Jan. 2018
  • Add a petticoat underneath to help give the skirt volume.
    Jill Gleeson, Country Living, 9 Sep. 2022
  • Pleated skirts, floaty organza, and a hot pink petticoat were all a part of his photo shoot wardrobe.
    Kelsey Stiegman, Seventeen, 13 Nov. 2020
  • The March women wear corsets and bib dresses or petticoats and linen peasant blouses.
    Vogue, 13 Aug. 2019
  • She's added a frothy petticoat underneath to make the skirt even more cupcake-esque, and the whole thing fits her curves perfectly.
    Ew Staff, EW.com, 6 May 2021
  • The bodice featured a vintage style lace panel and the dress carried a net petticoat with lace trim underneath.
    Stephanie Petit, PEOPLE.com, 21 May 2017
  • Well, if this was the Victorian era, the girls would have been wearing an elaborate system of bloomers/a chemise, a corset, a hoop, a petticoat, a skirt, and a bodice.
    Emma Specter, Vogue, 25 Dec. 2019
  • The petticoat went firmly around my waist, and my blouse, tailor made to measure in India, closed in the front like a corset, its short sleeves tight around my underarms.
    Meara Sharma, Vogue, 30 Apr. 2019
  • The answer suggested by Woolf and Ruhl is that the true costume here, more so than petticoats or frocks, is gender itself.
    Jeremy D. Goodwin, BostonGlobe.com, 27 Feb. 2018
  • While there is no date labeled inside the petticoat, based on the silhouette, was likely worn around her wedding in 1840.
    Nicole Saunders, Harper's BAZAAR, 3 June 2019
  • As a result, middle- and upper-class American women squeezed themselves into corsets and six to eight petticoats to fill out the shape of their skirts.
    Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian, 24 May 2018
  • The costumes were enormous — big skirts, so much petticoat — and trying to cram them into a basement wasn’t working.
    John Wenzel, The Know, 4 Aug. 2019
  • The cast wore eyelet collars, long hemlines, lace-up boots, and basket bags in America; petticoats, corsets, lace gloves, and satin heels in France.
    Eliza Huber, refinery29.com, 10 Feb. 2020
  • In the 19th century, crinoline, a structured petticoat, was used to widen women's skirts to and make waists appear smaller.
    Isiah Magsino, Town & Country, 5 Jan. 2023
  • The museum's costume seamstress fitted me with a floor-length cotton skirt, petticoat and long-sleeved blouse.
    Tracee M. Herbaugh, courant.com, 21 Aug. 2017
  • The museum’s costume seamstress fitted me with a floor-length cotton skirt, petticoat and long-sleeved blouse.
    Tracee M. Herbaugh, The Seattle Times, 15 Aug. 2017
  • In Connemara at the same time people still dressed boys and girls alike in red flannel petticoats until the age of twelve, a disguise used to trick those fairies who liked to steal boys in particular.
    Longreads, 9 June 2018
  • But despite her torn dress and bloody petticoat and bruises, Brianna refuses to speak of the trauma.
    Wendy Naugle, Glamour, 7 Jan. 2019
  • Little wonder that steampunk fans buy top hats and petticoats, adorn themselves in brass and glass, and flock to steampunk conventions.
    Nicole Yunger Halpern, Scientific American, 18 Apr. 2020
  • As on the frontier, when predators never knew which woman might have a derringer in her petticoat, no one today knows when they will be recorded breaking the law.
    Sebastian Junger, National Review, 13 July 2023
  • On one occasion, Bickerdyke ordered privileged white ladies to drop their petticoats so the muslin could be used to bandage the unwrapped stumps of amputees.
    Harold Holzer, WSJ, 7 June 2018
  • Using more of the petticoat’s crin to create a hieratic hat, Magugu likens the piece to a Nefertiti headdress.
    Hamish Bowles, Vogue, 25 Aug. 2022
  • Royal scarlet velvet skirt in pannier effect with petticoat of cloth of gold embroidered in red lilies and gold pittas.
    Melinda Morris, NOLA.com, 8 Feb. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'petticoat.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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