[see GOWN.]
1. A woman’s night-gown or ‘night-dress.’
1762. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, V. vii. 43. Her bed-gowns, and … under-petticoats.
c. 1860. Whittier, Sisters, iii. Annie rose up in her bed-gown white.
2. A kind of jacket worn by women of the working class in the north.
1827. Scott, in Lockhart (1839), IX. 168. The women had no other dress than a bed-gown and petticoat.
1863. Kingsley, Water Bab., 52. The nicest old woman that ever was seen, in her red petticoat and short dimity bedgown.
Hence Bedgowny a. colloq.
1885. Pall Mall Gaz., 30 April, 6/1. Sloppy, bed-gowny, décollettée dresses.
