Dictionary

chimney-piece en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (alt-of, alternative) Alternative form of chimneypiece.
   alt of chimneypiece
   • "Crabtree's become a—a womanthrope," said Tommers. "No—a misowench. There's not been a fresh photo of ankles on his chimney-piece for months." 1924, E. F. Benson, David of King's:
   • When this information was given, and they had all taken their seats, Mr. Collins was at leisure to look around him and admire, and he was so much struck with the size and furniture of the apartment, that he declared he might almost have supposed himself in the small summer breakfast parlour at Rosings; a comparison that did not at first convey much gratification; but when Mrs. Philips understood from him what Rosings was, and who was its proprietor, when she had listened to the description of only one of Lady Catherine’s drawing-rooms, and found that the chimney-piece alone had cost eight hundred pounds, she felt all the force of the compliment, and would hardly have resented a comparison with the housekeeper’s room. 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter XVI, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume I, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, pages 170–171:
   • […] and the chastest women thought it no shame for their pictures to be exposed in every stationer's shop or to decorate the chimney-piece of a platonic counter-jumper. 1905, W. Somerset Maugham, chapter V, in The Merry-Go-Round:
   • As you say, we passengers are to be taxed to pay all these fineries. I have often seen a good sideboard, or a marble chimney-piece, though not actually put in the bill, inflame a reckoning confoundedly. 1773, [Oliver] Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer: Or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. […], London: […] F[rancis] Newbery, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page):
   • Went to visit our good neighbor, Mr. Bohun, whose whole house is a cabinet of all elegancies, especially Indian; […] [A]bove all, his lady's cabinet is adorn'd on the fret, cieling, and chimney-piece with Mr. Gibbons's best carving. 1682 August 8 (Gregorian calendar), John Evelyn, “[Diary entry for 30 July 1682]”, in William Bray, editor, Memoirs, Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, […], 2nd edition, volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […]; and sold by John and Arthur Arch, […], published 1819, →OCLC, page 232:
   • [H]e possessed the most delightful chinoiseries—trophies of his sojourn in the Celestial Empire: pagodas of ebony and cabinets of ivory; sculptured monsters, grinning and leering on chimney-pieces, in front of beautifully figured hand-screens; […] 1878 July–October, Henry James, Jr., chapter VI, in The Europeans. A Sketch. […], volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., published 1878, →OCLC, page 246:
   • The chimney-piece was of party-coloured marble, covered with figures, some of whose faces were beautiful, but generally running off into those grotesque combinations which characterised the peculiar taste of their time. 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 114:

Forms