[f. FINE a. + -ERY; perh. on the analogy of BRAVERY.]
1. † a. ‘Fine’ appearance; beauty or elegance viewed disparagingly (obs.). b. Smartness, stylishness, affected or ostentatious elegance or splendor (now rare).
1729. Law, Serious C., iv. 57. They want to grow rich in their trades, and to maintain their families in some such figure and degree of finery as a reasonable Christian life has no occasion for.
1741. Watts, Improv. Mind, I. xv. § 4. 214. Don’t chuse your constant Place of Study by the Finery of the Prospects.
1741. Middleton, Lett. fr. Rome, Postscr. 244. To gaze at the finery of these paintings.
1702. Wolcott (P. Pindar), More Money, Wks. 1812, II. 496.
| And lo, you kill your own delightful Lambs, | |
| And beat old Bakewell in the breed of Rams, | |
| And never wish to keep a thing for finery. |
1847. G. P. R. James, The Convict, iii. There was little lath and plaster about them, little tinsel and bright coloring; but there was a sober and a solid grandeur, a looking for comfort rather than finery, of durability rather than cheapness, which made them pleasant to live in, and makes them so even to the present day.
1865. Merivale, Rom. Emp., VIII. lxvi. 250. They represent, however, a certain fantastic finery of manners, to which it would be difficult to find an exact parallel.
2. concr. Gaudy or showy decoration; showy dress. Also in pl.
1680. Miss A. Montague, in Hatton Corr. (1878), 240. I doe not heare of much finnery, and what I shall have will not deserve that name.
1726. Amherst, Terræ Fil., v. 25. I have heard some bitter men, no friends to the university, observe that, of late years, sciences and arts have declin’d in Oxford, in proportion as their fineries have increased.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 170, 2 Nov., ¶ 4. My sisters envied my new finery, and seemed not much to regret our separation.
1805. N. Nicholls, Let., in Corr. w. Gray (1843), 53. When Mr. Walpole added the gallery, with its gilding and glass, he said, ‘he had degenerated into finery.’
1849. Ruskin, Sev. Lamps, i. § 7. 16. I would not have that useless expense in unnoticed fineries or formalities.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., I. 192. Children are abundant, much impeded in their frolics, and rendered stiff and stately by the finery which they wear.
† 3. pl. Instances of fine or delicate workmanship.
1713. Derham, Phys. Theol., VIII. iv. 407, note. The minute Curiosities, and inimitable Fineries, observable in those lesser Animals, in which our best Microscopes discover no Botch, no rude ill-made Work (contrary to what is in all artificial Works of Man) do they not far more deserve our Admiration, than those celebrated Pieces of human Art?
