From Old French porfiler, from Latin pro- + filum (“thread”). Doublet of profile.
Meanings
An ornamental border on clothing, furniture or a violin; beading, stringing.
the messager came for kyng Arthurs berd / For kyng Ryons had purfyled a mantel with kynges berdes /[…]/ wherfor he sente for his berd or els he wold entre in to his landes /[…]/ & neuer leue tyl he haue the hede and the berd / wel sayd Arthur thow hast said thy message / the whiche is the most vylaynous and lewdest message that euer man herd sente vnto a kynge / Also thow mayst see / my berd is ful yong yet to make a purfyl of hit 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “xxvij”, in Le Morte Darthur, book I:
An ornamental border, edge, or line of a different tincture or material.
Adumbration (or Transparency) is a clear Exemption of the Substance of the Charge, so that there remaineth only the outward Strokes or Purfle of a Thing; 1726, John Guillim, The banner display'd: or, An abridgment of Guillim [in his Display of heraldrie] by S. Kent, page 43:
Cross […] has its extremities ending in a flower of three leaves, or flower-de-luces, with a purfle, or line between them and the ends of the cross. 1804, Alexander Nisbet, A system of heraldry, speculative and practical, page 117:
From Old French porfiler, from Latin pro- + filum (“thread”). Doublet of profile.
Meanings
(archaic, transitive) To decorate (wood, cloth etc.) with a purfle or ornamental border; to border.
Remembering the exchange now, Dickie smiled that winning southern-boy smile. Then he went glum again. He thumped the purfled sound board. 2003, Tom Robbins, Villa Incognito:
It came to pass on a certain day, as he stood about the street leaning idly upon his crate, behold, there stood before him an honourable woman in a mantilla of Mosul silk, broidered with gold and bordered with brocade; her walking shoes were also purfled with gold and her hair floated in long plaits. 1885, Sir Richard Burton, “The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad”, in The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, volume 1:
He had a faire companion of his way, / A goodly Lady, clad in ſcarlot red, / Purfled with gold and pearle of rich aſſay, […] 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 13, page 10:
And this was his message gretynge wel kynge Arthur in this manere wyse sayenge / that kynge Ryons had discomfyte and ouercome xj kynges /[…]/ they gaf hym their berdys clene flayne[…]/ wher for the messager came for kyng Arthurs berd / For kyng Ryons had purfyled a mantel with kynges berdes / and there lacked one place of the mantel 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “xxvij”, in Le Morte Darthur, book I:
(transitive) To ornament with purfle.
Crest; a dragon passant proper, wings elevated and purfled gules. 1815, John Wilkes, Encyclopaedia Londinensis, page 606: