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• half mourning
  half mourning

  noun

  a mourning garb less somber than deep mourning, usually following a period of deep mourning.
• half-mourning
  half-mourning

  noun

  dark grey clothes worn by some during a period after full formal mourning

half mourning

American  

noun

1. a mourning garb less somber than deep mourning, usually following a period of deep mourning.

2. the period during which it is worn.

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half-mourning British  

noun

1. dark grey clothes worn by some during a period after full formal mourning

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Etymology

Origin of half mourning

First recorded in 1810–20

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

half mourning half-mourning

Her husband sits on one end of the frilly sofa, half asleep from the long night, half mourning.

From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee

Sometimes he would appear in the ring as a cavalier, in a black costume embroidered with silver and with a large white-and-black plume, in imitation of the Queenʼs half mourning.

From The Philippine Islands by John Foreman

That white lace tea-gown with the silver-gray train is very nice; but you ought not to be in half mourning now.

From The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers by Mary Cholmondeley

The funeral rites were half festive, half mourning.

From The World and Its People: Book VII Views in Africa by Anna B. Badlam

The low houses were like so many rows of pale faces; the caps of the fishwives, as they nodded a farewell, seemed to put the village in half mourning.

From In and out of Three Normady Inns by Anna Bowman Dodd

Perhaps he would slide truffle slices under the skin for poulet en demi-deuil, the rarely seen chicken in half-mourning made famous by Eugènie Brazier, the chef who founded La Mère Brazier.

From New York Times ● Jul. 21, 2020

And did I not——" then glancing at her half-mourning, "for the widow and the fatherless.

From The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville

You know they were got for half-mourning because of old Sir George Mildmay's—papa's uncle's—death, and they look quite fresh and nice.

From Robin Redbreast A Story for Girls by Robert Barnes

I could not go round everywhere, asking everybody after two ladies dressed in half-mourning, could I?

From She and I, Volume 1 by John C. (John Conroy) Hutcheson

Both the ladies were dressed in half-mourning, which attracted my attention and made me observe them more closely than I might otherwise have done.

From She and I, Volume 1 by John C. (John Conroy) Hutcheson

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