Obs. Also zendaletto. [It. zendaletto, dim. of zendale SENDAL.]
1. In Venice, a large square woollen shawl, usually black, folded triangularly and worn either over the head (in the 18th cent. upon a wire frame) or over the shoulders.
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, I. 184. A Venetian lady’s mode of appearance in her zendalet, without which nobody stirs out of their house in a morning. It consists of a full black silk petticoat … flounced with gauze…. A skeleton wire upon the head,… over it a large piece of black mode or persian, so as to shade the face like a curtain.
[1910. trans. P. Mounier’s Venice 18th Cent., iv. 57. Over their heads they fasten that zendaletto of white lace, which inwreathes the waist, the shoulders, and the smile.]
2. A long piece of cloth falling from the back of the hood of a gondola into the water; hence, the gondola itself.
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, xvii. The count led Emily to his zendaletto.
a. 1814. Gondolier, II. i., in New Brit. Theatre, III. 183. When moonlight cheers the scenes we love,… And zendalettos seem to move Upon a sea of liquid light.
