Forms: 4–8 chapelet, 5 chapelytte, capelet, 5–7 chappelet, 6 chapellette, chapplett, 4– chaplet. [ME. chapelet, a. OF. chapelet (in ONF. capelet), dim. of chape, chapeau head-dress, hood, hat: see -ET.]
1. A wreath for the head, usually a garland of flowers or leaves, also of gold, precious stones, etc.; a circlet, coronal.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, XI. 546. Ane rose of his chaplet Wes faldyn.
c. 1450. Merlin, 227. The mayden … hadde on hir heede a riche chapelet of preciouse stones.
1460. Capgrave, Chron., 149. Thei sette on his hed but a chapelet, that they schulde do no prejudise to the Cherch of Cantirbyry, to whom longith to crowne the Kyng.
1480. Caxton, Chron. Eng., ccix. 192. Men set vpon hir hedes chappeletz of sharpe netteles.
1590. Greene, Neuer too late (1600), 89. This Damosell … in a scarlet peticoate, with a chaplet of flowers on her head.
1691. Swift, Athenian Soc., Wks. 1755, IV. I. 230. Pluck’d a laurel branch … And made an humble chaplet for the king.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 100, ¶ 3. Crowned with Chaplets of Roses.
1794. Coleridge, Death Chatterton. Poor Chatterton! farewell!… This chaplet cast I on thy unshaped tomb.
1839. Thirlwall, Greece, II. 318. The Spartans gave him a chaplet of olive leaves.
1868. W. B. Marriott, Vestiar. Christ., Introd. 42. St. Peter holds in his hands the chaplet which designates his martyrdom.
fig. 1827. Hare, Guesses, Ser. I. (1873), 175. [His] laurelled head was girt with a chaplet of all the domestic affections.
1871. Morley, Voltaire (1886), 147. [It] fastens this gross chaplet round the memory of a great deliverer of the poet’s own country.
b. Her. A bearing representing a garland of leaves with four flowers at equal distances.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 63/2. A Chaplet … is … 4 Roses set upon a Chaplet, or Circle for the head.
1864. Boutell, Heraldry Hist. & Pop., xiv. § 1 (ed. 3), 168. A chaplet of rue in bend vert.
2. A string of beads.
a. esp. One used for counting prayers, one third of the length of a rosary. Also, the prayers recited over this.
A rosary has 15 decades of aves, a chaplet 5. Littré.
1653. H. Cogan, trans. Pinto’s Trav., xxvi. (1663), 102. An old woman … with a Chaplet hanging down on her neck.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., The orientals have a kind of chaplets … which they use in their prayers.
1851. Mrs. Browning, Casa Guidi Wind., 14. The chaplet’s last beads fall In naming the last saintship.
1876. Bancroft, Hist. U.S., II. xxxiv. 362. Parties would meet in the cabins to recite the chaplet in alternate choirs.
b. gen. A string of beads; a necklace.
c. 1850. Arab. Nts. (Rtldg.), 591. Hanging a large necklace, or chaplet round his neck.
3. Anything resembling a string of beads; e.g., the string of eggs of the toad.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1776), VIII. 40. The eggs of female butterflies are disposed in the body like a bed of chaplets.
1835–6. Todd, Cycl. Anat., I. 105/2. The eggs … are gradually ejected in double chaplets as in the toad.
1871. Darwin, Desc. Man, I. vi. 210. Certain male toads take the chaplets of eggs from the females and wind them round their own thighs.
4. Arch. A molding of the astragal species.
1623. Lisle, Ælfric on O. & N. T., Pref. 4. Artificiall marble … whereof so many goodly chaplets and pillars were made in our Churches.
1752. Chambers, Cycl., Chaplet, or chapelet, in architecture, a little moulding cut, or carved into round beads, pearls, olives, or the like. A chaplet … is little else but a baguette enriched with sculpture.
1876. Gwilt, Archit., Gloss. s.v. Baguette, The baguette is called a chaplet when ornaments are cut on it.
† 5. A kind of circular gridiron. Obs.
1664. Evelyn, Sylva, 25. The best Tables in France and Italy make them a service, eating them with Salt, in Wine, being first rosted on the Chapplet [ed. 1776 Chaplet].
6. Founding. One of the metal supports of the core of a hollow molding, e.g., of a cylindrical pipe. Hence chaplet-block.
1885. Pattern Making (Crosby Lockwood), 192. In nearly all large hollow machine castings chaplets furnish the chief support to the cores. In their rudest form they are simply thin plates of hoop iron, into which a bit of wrought bar of the necessary length is riveted, the opposite end of the bar being steadied against a bar of the box, or a cubical wooden chaplet block embedded in the sand. These chaplets … prevent the liquid pressure of the metal from thrusting the core against the side of the mould.
7. See CHAPELET2.
8. Comb., as chaplet-cap, -maker.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 113. The Chaplet-makers in Egypt … sow and plant [Persoluta] in their gardens onely for to make Coronets and Guirlands.
1661. Morgan, Sph. Gentry, IV. v. 65. The imposition of a Chaplet Cap, with a circulet of gold.
Chaplet, var. of CHAPELET1, Obs.
