• furbelow •
Printable Version Pronunciation: fê(r)-bê-lo • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. A flounce, a ruffle on a garment, curtain, tablecloth, or the like. 2. Anything unnecessary but showy.
Notes: A strip of fur on the hem of an overcoat would be pretty fur below but not a furbelow, which is a ruffle, a flounce. Still, while you may flounce into a room, your dress bouncing up and down, you cannot furbelow into a room. To furbelow a room, you would have to decorate it with ruffles. Please, try to keep all these Good Words straight.
In Play: 
Furbelows are generally associated with women's dress: "Murine wore a polka dot jumper with flowery furbelows on the shoulder straps." But you may occasionally see them in unexpected places, "When McDowell turned up at the fete with a furbelow on his kilt and a flounce in his walk, the womenfolk shied away from him." Of course, furbelows need not be ruffles: "Rod loves to load his car with furbelows like oversized tires, mud flaps, and running board lights."
Word History: Today's Good Word is one that has seen the world. It would seem to have descended from Provençal farbello "fringe", a corruption of Italian faldella, the diminutive of falda "flap, leaf, sheet". Now, falda was borrowed from a Germanic word that also gave us Old English faldan "to fold", modern day fold. The old word also went into the compound *faldistolaz "folding stool", absorbed by Medieval Latin as faldistolium "folding chair". Faldistolium went on to become Old French faldestoel and, ultimately, Modern French fauteuil "armchair".
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