Dictionary

laceman en · NOUN

Etymology

From lace + -man.

Meanings

1. (dated) A male dealer in lace.
   • And to say the truth, there is, in all points, great difference between the reasonable passion which women at this age conceive towards men, and the idle and childish liking of a girl to a boy, which is often fixed on the outside only, and on things of little value and no duration; as on cherry-cheeks, small, lily-white hands, sloe-black eyes, flowing locks, downy chins, dapper shapes; nay, sometimes on charms more worthless than these, and less the party's own; such are the outward ornaments of the person, for which men are beholden to the taylor, the laceman, the periwig-maker, the hatter, and the milliner, and not to nature. 1749, Henry Fielding, chapter XI, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume I, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book I:

Forms