[a. Fr. épaulette, f. épaule shoulder.
The anglicized spelling epaulet is preferable, on the ground that the word is fully naturalized in use; but the form in -ette is at present more common.]
1. A shoulder-piece; an ornament worn on the shoulder as part of a military, naval, or sometimes of a civil uniform. To win one’s epaulets: (of a private soldier) to earn promotion to the rank of officer.
1783. Nelson, 26 Nov., in Nicolas, Disp. (1845), I. 89. Here are two Navy Captains … with epaulettes.
1800. Naval Chron., III. 495. The Post Captain under three years standing … wears one epaulet upon the right shoulder.
1816. ‘Quiz,’ Grand Master, VIII. 220. Gorget, epaulets, and sash, Lion and crown—a perfect dash.
1838. Hist. Rec. 4th Dragoon Guards, 63. The Officers were ordered to wear two Silver Epaulettes and an Aiguillette.
1844. W. H. Kelly, trans. L. Blanc’s Hist. Ten Y., I. 212. Obliged to borrow from Rothschild, the banker, the epaulettes he wore as Austrian consul.
1875. Hamerton, Intell. Life, III. vi. 101. A soldier wins his epaulettes before the enemy.
b. As equivalent for ‘officer,’ ‘commission.’
1829. Marryat, F. Mildmay, xvi. My captain elect … herded not with his brother epaulettes.
1848. Thackeray, Bk. Snobs, ix. When epaulets are not sold.
2. Entom. The plate that covers the base of the anterior wings in hymenopterous insects.
1834. McMurtrie, Cuvier’s Anim. Kingd., 435. At the base of each of the superior wings is a kind of epaulette, prolonged posteriorly, that corresponds to the piece called tegula in the Hymenoptera.
1874. Lubbock, Orig. & Met. Ins., iii. 56. The ciliated lobes or epaulets.
3. Used by antiquarian writers as a name for the smaller forms of the shoulder-piece or ‘pauldron’ in a suit of armor.
1824. Meyrick, Anc. Armour, III. 87. A suit of armour … resembling the halecrets of Henry the Eighth’s time in having epaulettes for the shoulder.
4. A piece of trimming forming an ornament for the shoulder of a lady’s dress.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., I. ii. A shoulder—with a powdered epaulette on it—of the mature young lady.
5. Comb., as epaulet-like adj.
1841–71. T. R. Jones, Anim. Kingd. (ed. 4), 221. Four epaulet-like wreaths of long cilia.
1889. Daily News, 12 Nov., 3/1. Oversleeves of the velvet are heaped up in epaulet-like folds upon the shoulders.
Hence Epauletted ppl. a., furnished or ornamented with epaulets; wearing epaulets.
1810. Naval Chron., XXIII. 351. His epauletted coat.
1836. E. Howard, R. Reefer, I. xxviii. 138. Heavily epauletted shoulders.
1849. Blackw. Mag., LXV. 30. How were the Kabyles to distinguish between the acts of the private soldier and of the epauleted chief.
1860. Gen. P. Thompson, Audi Alt., III. cxxiv. 77. To don the dress of epauletted hangmen.
