Bishop

A lady’s bustle. Obsolete.

1790.  I know not how to describe the ideas that were excited in my mind by the sight of a Bishop. Agreeably to your directions I fixed it upon my hips: but my sister and two brothers ran out of the room to avoid me.—Mass. Spy, Sept. 16.

1791.  Tax then freely our caps, bonnets, cushions, bishops, every piece of ornamental dress.—Gazette of the U.S., Jan. 26 (Phila.).

1807.  Some years ago, I am informed that the ladies wore what they called bishops; but am not informed as to their real shape, size, and use; further than that they were intended to strike the beholder with an idea of magnitude and importance.—“Observator,” in The Balance, Sept. 8 (p. 281).

1828.  Bishops or pads, which are worth a voyage to the moon, to behold in all their majestic rotundity.—J. K. Paulding, ‘The New Mirror for Travellers,’ p. 62.

1828.  Young ladies should take special care of their bishops. The loss of a bishop is dangerous in other games besides chess.—Id., p. 228.

1832.  When the ladies first began to lay off their cumbrous hoops, they supplied their place with successive substitutes, such as these, to wit: first came “bishops,” a thing stuffed or padded with horse hair; then succeeded a smaller affair, under the name of Cue de Paris, also padded with horse hair.—Watson, ‘Historic Tales of New York,’ p. 147.

1839.  She it was, who first appeared with the leg-of-mutton sleeve, with the boddice waist, and the bishop.—Knick. Mag., xiii. 190 (March).

1842.  Ladies’ bishops are sometimes called stern realities.—Phila., Spirit of the Times, Sept. 15.

1844.  Why are the ladies in a fair way to become rulers in the churches? Because all their movements are backed by the bishops.—Id., Sept. 17.

1847.  What is the fashuns in Tennysee, the biggest sort of Bishups is the go here.—T. B. Thorpe, ‘The Big Bear of Arkansas: Billy Warwick’s Courtship and Wedding,’ p. 105 (Phila.).

1848.