Forms: 67 bodies, 89 boddice, 7 bodice. [A variant of bodies (see BODY 6), retaining the earlier sound of final -s, the original phrase being a pair of bodies; even with the spelling bodice the word was formerly (like pence, mice, dice, truce) treated as a plural.]
1. Formerly. An inner garment for the upper part of the body, quilted and strengthened with whalebone (worn chiefly by women, but also by men); a corset, stays; freq. called a pair of bodies (bodice) = a pair of stays.
1618. Fletcher, Loyal Subj., II. i. 31. If the bones want setting In her old bodies.
a. 1637. B. Jonson, Elegie, lx. (1854), 829. The whale-bone man That quilts those bodies I have leave to span.
1674. Grew, Anat. Plants, V. § 3. A Flower without its Empalement, would hang as uncouth and taudry, as a Lady without her Bodies.
1679. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), I. 23. Mowbray having a pair of bodice on, and falling down as if really dead, the assassinate fled.
1706. Lond. Gaz., No. 4196/4. A pair of new blewish Bodice.
1779. Johnson, Pope, L. P. (1787), IV. 91. [Pope] was invested in boddice made of stiff canvass, being scarce able to hold himself erect till they were laced.
b. fig.
1732. Fielding, Covent Gard. Jrnl., No. 55. His sentiment, when let loose from that stiff boddice in which it is laced.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xviii. (1872), III. 303/1. It was never found politic to put trade into straitlaced bodices.
2. The upper part of a womans dress, a tight-fitting outer vest or waistcoat, either made in a piece with the skirt or separate (cf. BODY sb.); also, an inner vest worn immediately over the stays.
15667. Prec. Treas., in Chalmers, Mary (1818), I. 207. Of ormaise taffatis to lyne the bodies and sclevis of the goune and vellicote.
1625. Fletcher, Fair Maid, II. ii. 35. Nothing but her vpper bodies.
1682. Wheler, Journ. Greece, I. 64. They wear a Bodies of Red or Green Velvet.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 276, ¶ 3. He keeps me in a pair of Slippers, neat Bodice, warm Petticoats.
1873. Black, Pr. of Thule, vii. 98. She wore a tight-fitting bodice of cream-white flannel.
3. Comb. and Attrib., as bodice hand, bodice-maker, -seller.
1672. R. Wild, Declar. Lib. Consc., 2. A neighbouring Bodies-maker, that whistles a Psalm-tune.
1684. Lond. Gaz., No. 1980/4. Mr. John Nichols Bodice seller at the Falcon on London Bridge. Ibid. (1701), No. 3758/8. At Mr. Cades, a Bodice-seller.
1758. Johnson, Idler, No. 40, ¶ 12. The taylors and boddice-makers of the present age.