Habiliment

Word of the Day for Thursday, September 5, 2013

Habiliment \huh-BIL-uh-muhnt\, noun:

1. Usually, habiliments. a. clothes or clothing. b. clothes as worn in a particular profession, way of life, etc.
2. habiliments, accouterments or trappings.

At this very moment, perhaps, Toad is busy arraying himself in those singularly hideous habiliments so dear to him, which transform him from a (comparatively) good-looking Toad into an Object which throws any decent-minded animal that comes across it into a violent fit.
-- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, 1908

It deepened; it purified. It lost its previous comedic habiliments, its air of shtick, and became unadulterated, lethal, pure despair.
-- Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot, 2011

Habiliment comes from the French word of the same spelling. It's from the root habiller meaning "to dress."

 

Thanks t: www.dictionary.com