Jan van Eyck - Portrait of a Young Man (Tymotheos) - WGA7596

A liripipe ()Also spelled liri-, lerri-, lyri- lirry- leery- leerepoop(e)/ pope, liri-, lyri-, luri-, leripup, lirripippes, liripipy, liripipion, and liripion. is an element of

clothing Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natural ...

, the tail of a

hood Hood may refer to: Covering Apparel * Hood (headgear), type of head covering ** Article of academic dress ** Bondage hood, sex toy * Hoodie, hooded sweatshirt Anatomy * Clitoral hood, a hood of skin surrounding the clitoris * Hood, a flap of ...

cloak A cloak is a type of loose garment worn over clothing, mostly but not always as outerwear for outdoor wear, serving the same purpose as an overcoat, protecting the wearer from the weather. It may form part of a uniform. Cloaks have been and a ...

, or a long-tailed hood. The modern-day liripipe appears on the hoods of

academic dress Academic dress is a traditional form of clothing for academic settings, mainly tertiary (and sometimes secondary) education, worn mainly by those who have obtained a university degree (or similar), or hold a status that entitles them to assum ...

Description

With long-tailed hoods it includes in particular a chaperon or

gugel A gugel was a type of hood with a trailing point, popularly worn in medieval Germany. Description It was tailored to fit the head and shoulders, and was usually made from wool or loden. Originally worn by commoners, it became fashionable with t ...

, or the peak of a shoe. A graffito on the church wall of Swannington Church in

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

depicts a "late medieval woman wearing a long, laced gown and hood with a long liripipe ornament." In modern times, ''liripipe'' mostly refers to the tail of the cowl of an academic hood, seen at graduation ceremonies. ''Liripipe'' was popular from the mid-14th to the end of the 15th century. 'Liripipe', and the phrase 'liripipe hood', which are often used by costume historians, are not medieval words but scholarly adoptions dating to the early modern period to describe a fashion which appears very often in medieval art, in the form of a long extension to a hood. It could be worn hanging down, or, by the 15th century, is depicted wrapped round the head or the neck.

Origins

The word is believed to originate from the

Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...

term ', which is of unsure origin. ''

Webster's Dictionary ''Webster's Dictionary'' is any of the English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758–1843), as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's n ...

'' suggests it is a corruption of ' ("clergy's

tippet A tippet is a piece of clothing worn over the shoulders in the shape of a scarf or cape. Tippets evolved in the fourteenth century from long sleeves and typically had one end hanging down to the knees. A tippet (or tappit) could also be the long ...

"), but this is uncertain. The ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

'', attributing the hypothesis to

Gilles Ménage Gilles Ménage (; 15 August 1613 – 23 July 1692) was a French scholar. Biography He was born at Angers, the son of Guillaume Ménage, king's advocate at Angers. A good memory and enthusiasm for learning carried him quickly through his lite ...

, calls it a "ludicrous guess".: "No plausible etymology has been found ..Ménage's ludicrous guess, that ' is a corruption of ', is repeated seriously in recent " Perhaps due to its academic association, the word has the obsolete sense of "part or lesson committed to memory", as in the expressions "to know one's liripipe" and "to teach someone his liripipe". Another possible origin for the word is that it refers to the resemblance of the hood's "tail" to a long, thin purse used to hold coins, literally a "lira pipe".

Fashion

''Liripipe'' often appears in text as implicit criticism of absurd or exaggerated fashion: in the 1360s the author of the ''Chronicle Eulogium Historiarum sive Temporis'' mentions liripipes that hang right down to the heels like ridiculous strips (liripipia usque talum longa modo fatuorum dilacerata''') or worn tied round the head by cross-dressing women. The term was also applied to exaggerated toes on shoes, according to a 14th-century statute of Oxford University.

Other uses

The variant spelling ''liripoop'' has also the obsolete meaning of "silly person", most probably because it is an

inherently funny word An inherently funny word is a word that is humorous without context, often more for its phonetic structure than for its meaning. Vaudeville tradition holds that words with the letter ''k'' are funny. A 2015 study at the University of Alberta sugg ...

, cf
"Nincompoop"

Notes

References

{{Commons category

External links

"Liripipe"
by

Michael Quinion Michael Quinion (born c. 1943) is a British etymologist and writer. He ran World Wide Words, a website devoted to linguistics. He graduated from Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he studied physical sciences and after which he joined BBC radio as a ...

List of Favourite Words, Including "Liripipe"
by Stephen Chrisomalis Academic dress Hats History of clothing (Western fashion) Parts of clothing