bodice
[bod-is]
- a usually fitted vest or wide, lace-up girdle worn by women over a dress or blouse, especially a cross-laced, sleeveless outer garment covering the waist and bust, common in peasant dress.
- the part of a woman's dress covering the body between the neck or shoulders and the waist.Compare waist(def 4).
- Obsolete. stays or a corset.
Origin of bodice
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for bodice
Contemporary Examples
Since the film is set in the 19th century, Jones was outfitted in a series of Victorian era gowns, replete with bodice and bustle.
Many of the looks, like a bodice worn with a figure-hugging pencil skirt, remained seductive and sexy despite its muted colors.
It was so big that it took me an hour to get into it and the only way for me to go to the bathroom was to take off the bodice.
Diane Kruger Couldn't Pee in Her Dior Dress; Lady Gaga Takes Sides in De la Renta v. HorynThe Daily Beast
September 19, 2012
Also, coins did not conveniently slide into the “vault” (Bunny-speak for bodice) the way paper money did.
Historical Examples
She took out a handkerchief from inside the bodice of her dress and dried her eyes.
A Spirit in PrisonRobert Hichens
Nana no longer needed to stuff wads of paper into her bodice, her breasts were grown.
L'AssommoirEmile Zola
Next he would sniff at her waist and bodice: "Ah, that's wall-flowers!"
The Fat and the ThinEmile Zola
She was quite flushed, and her bodice, generally so still and lifeless, began to heave.
The Fat and the ThinEmile Zola
From a recess covered by a shawl running on a string she took down her bodice.
The ManxmanHall Caine
bodice
- the upper part of a woman's dress, from the shoulder to the waist
- a tight-fitting corset worn laced over a blouse, as in certain national costumes, or (formerly) as a woman's undergarment
Word Origin
C16: originally Scottish bodies, plural of body
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for bodice
n.
1560s, oddly spelled plural of body, name of a tight-fitting Elizabethan garment covering the torso; plural because the body came in two parts which fastened in the middle. Bodice-ripper for "racy romance novel" is from 1981.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper