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Rebecca vocabulary
18 fashion terms (clothing, hair styles, fabrics, etc.)
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leading strings
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tags: [fashion]
► definition
Definition:strings or straps by which to support a child learning to walk. In 17th and 18th century Europe, they were narrow straps of fabric attached to children's clothing which originally functioned as a sort of leash to keep the child from straying too far or falling as they learned to walk.[...]text from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
painting: By Angelica Kauffmann (1790s), https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10782715
► uses
Uses:
treated me in all respects as a perfect infant. To say the truth, I wonder she had not insisted on my again wearing leading-strings.
Henry Fielding. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
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She often took me out of my box, at my own desire, to give me air, and show me the country, but always held me fast by a leading-string.
Jonathan Swift. Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
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He is a young monarch, scarcely out of political leading-strings, as it were, and doubtless his Ministers thought that they had better arrange his marriage for him.
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