subs. (old colloquial).—A woman’s head-dress: 14th Century. Also, later, a steeple-crowned hat for either sex (see quot. 1583).
1583. P. STUBBES, The Anatomie of Abuses (1585), f. 21. Long hats pearking up like the spere or shaft of a STEEPLE, standyng a quarter of a yarde above the croune of their heades, some more, some lesse, as please the phantasies of their inconstant mindes.
1601. T. WRIGHT, The Passions of the Minde in Generall (1621), 330. STEEPLED HATS.
c. 1704. [J. ASHTON, Social Life in Reign of Queen Anne, II. 138]. The women wearing the old country STEEPLE-CROWNED HAT and simply made gowns.
1706. WARD, Hudibras Redivivus. The good old dames … In stiffen-body’d russet gowns, And on their heads old STEEPLE-CROWNS.
1837. BROWNING, Strafford, v. 2. An old doublet and a STEEPLE HAT.
1888. Encyclopædia Britannica, VI. 469. Some of the more popular of these strange varieties of head-gear have been distinguished as the ‘horned,’ the ‘mitre,’ the ‘STEEPLE’—in France known as the ‘hennin’—and the ‘butterfly.’
