Décolletage

By Deane Barker • • tags: definition •

Definition: a dress with a low neckline; the area of the body exposed by such a dress

There’s a good etymology here: it comes from the French word décollet, which literally means no (“de”) collar (“collet”) to represent “low neckline.”

In one type of usage, décolletage is also known, more simply, as cleavage.

Why I Looked It Up

From Vanderbilt:

[Mrs. Astor’s] ears sparkled with diamond drop earring, her chest glittered with a diamond bow and lovers’ knot brooches, and her décolletage was weighted down with heaps of diamond necklaces.

Links from this – Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty April 24, 2022
Enormously entertaining history of the Vanderbilt family by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was a Vanderbilt on his mother’s side. Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt was a self-made man. He started ferrying people on a small boat around New York Harbor and ended up becoming the richest man the world had...