Also 6 buegle, 6–7 beau-, 7 beu-, bewgle. [Etymology unknown. Of the med.L. bugulus, sometimes quoted as the etymon, a single instance, as the name of a ‘pad,’ or framework for the hair, used by Italian ladies, occurs in a chapter De moribus civium Placentiæ 1388, in Muratori, Script. Ital. XVI. 580; no similar word is known in Ital. or Fr. Bugle has a certain resemblance in form to Du. beugel a ring (:—MDu. böghil, bōghel, Franck); but no connection of meaning appears.]
1. A tube-shaped glass bead, usually black, used to ornament wearing apparel. (Formerly also collective, or as the name of a material.)
1579. Spenser, Sheph. Cal., Feb., 66. A gyrdle … Embost with buegle.
1583. Stubbes, Anat. Abus. (1877), 61, note. Thei vse to garde their clokes rounde about the skirtes with … Bugles.
1598. Florio, Margaritine, bugles or seede pearles.
1640. Jrnl. Ho. Commons, II. 33. The sole Making and Venting of Beads and Beaugles.
1657. R. Ligon, Barbadoes (1673), 16. Some small beads, of white Amber, or blew bugle.
1753. Richardson, Grandison (1781), I. xxii. 159. Set off with bugles and spangles.
c. 1813. Mrs. Sherwood, Stories Ch. Catech., xiv. 116. She would load them with presents … gloves, habit-shirts, silver spoons, bugles, brooches.
1884. ‘Wanderer’ (E. H. D’Avigdor), Fair Diana, xxxiii. 265. The black grapes and bugles which now decorated her bonnet, shivered and jingled with the vigour of the kiss pressed on Diana’s unwilling lips.
2. attrib. Made of, adorned with, or resembling, bugles.
1598. Sylvester, Du Bartas, I. iv. (1641), 37/1. With his bristled, hoary, beaugle-beard, Comming to kisse her.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., III. v. 47. Your inkie browes, your blacke silke haire, Your bugle eye-balls, nor your cheeke of creame. Ibid. (1611), Wint. T., IV. iv. 224. Bugle-bracelet, Necke-lace Amber.
1611. L. Barry, Ram Alley, IV. i. Her bugle-gown, and best-wrought smock.
1710. Steele, Tatler, No. 245, ¶ 2. Adam and Eve in Bugle-Work … upon Canvas, curiously wrought.
1767. Ellis, in Phil. Trans., LVII. 408. The Cellularia Salicornia … or Bugle Coralline.
