How to Use petticoat in a Sentence

petticoat

noun
  • It's made from a smaller petticoat that came out of a prom dress.
    — Andrea Reeves, Cincinnati.com, 30 Apr. 2020
  • Her lacy petticoat and bodice showed up dead white in the light of the blazing fire.
    — Washington Post, 24 May 2023
  • Cut into petticoat tails and enjoy with a cup of strong black tea.
    — Beth Segal, cleveland, 3 Feb. 2022
  • Under each dress is a petticoat layer, as well as a pair of bloomers — both are to be steamed.
    — Leah Dolan, CNN Money, 13 Nov. 2025
  • Olivia has not been fitting into her petticoats lately and seems out of sorts.
    — Keith Phipps, Vulture, 26 Sep. 2025
  • Young girls and women wore petticoats and poofy skirts, while the boys and men donned cuffed jeans for the movie outings.
    — Uwa Ede-Osifo, Dallas Morning News, 14 Feb. 2026
  • Pleated skirts, floaty organza, and a hot pink petticoat were all a part of his photo shoot wardrobe.
    — Kelsey Stiegman, Seventeen, 13 Nov. 2020
  • There was an imprint of Irene's petticoat found on the banks of the canal and a partial heel print from a man's shoe.
    — CBS News, 27 Jan. 2018
  • The skirt dragging behind her looks like a petticoat that's been through an apocalypse, burned to its frame.
    — Molly Glentzer, Houston Chronicle, 17 Jan. 2018
  • Next, Joubert steers me to a display of store mannequins in petticoats.
    — Gregory Barber, WIRED, 6 June 2019
  • Only a young woman in a scarlet petticoat proves more obliging.
    — John Swansburg, The Atlantic, 15 June 2026
  • The March women wear corsets and bib dresses or petticoats and linen peasant blouses.
    — Vogue, 13 Aug. 2019
  • The bodice featured a vintage style lace panel and the dress carried a net petticoat with lace trim underneath.
    — Stephanie Petit, PEOPLE.com, 21 May 2017
  • Underneath that, there were several petticoats and a tulle-and-lace train insert.
    — Julie Tremaine, PEOPLE, 17 May 2026
  • The costumes were enormous — big skirts, so much petticoat — and trying to cram them into a basement wasn’t working.
    — John Wenzel, The Know, 4 Aug. 2019
  • She's added a frothy petticoat underneath to make the skirt even more cupcake-esque, and the whole thing fits her curves perfectly.
    — Ew Staff, EW.com, 6 May 2021
  • Little wonder that steampunk fans buy top hats and petticoats, adorn themselves in brass and glass, and flock to steampunk conventions.
    — Nicole Yunger Halpern, Scientific American, 18 Apr. 2020
  • Royal scarlet velvet skirt in pannier effect with petticoat of cloth of gold embroidered in red lilies and gold pittas.
    — Melinda Morris, NOLA.com, 8 Feb. 2018
  • With a bright pattern set on flaming crimson and a diaphanous petticoat underneath, the dress fits her perfectly.
    — Harpers Magazine, 23 Sep. 2025
  • With a bright pattern set on flaming crimson and a diaphanous petticoat underneath, the dress fits her perfectly.
    — David Wingrave, Harpers Magazine, 24 Oct. 2025
  • But despite her torn dress and bloody petticoat and bruises, Brianna refuses to speak of the trauma.
    — Wendy Naugle, Glamour, 7 Jan. 2019
  • As on the frontier, when predators never knew which woman might have a derringer in her petticoat, no one today knows when they will be recorded breaking the law.
    — Sebastian Junger, National Review, 13 July 2023
  • The answer suggested by Woolf and Ruhl is that the true costume here, more so than petticoats or frocks, is gender itself.
    — Jeremy D. Goodwin, BostonGlobe.com, 27 Feb. 2018
  • As a result, middle- and upper-class American women squeezed themselves into corsets and six to eight petticoats to fill out the shape of their skirts.
    — Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian, 24 May 2018
  • The petticoat went firmly around my waist, and my blouse, tailor made to measure in India, closed in the front like a corset, its short sleeves tight around my underarms.
    — Meara Sharma, Vogue, 30 Apr. 2019
  • In the 19th century, crinoline, a structured petticoat, was used to widen women's skirts to and make waists appear smaller.
    — Isiah Magsino, Town & Country, 5 Jan. 2023
  • As the GIs raise their guns, a pudgy hand in the backseat tears a strip of white cloth from his companion’s petticoat for the chauffeur to hang out the window.
    — Alice Kaplan, The New York Review of Books, 4 Apr. 2026
  • While there is no date labeled inside the petticoat, based on the silhouette, was likely worn around her wedding in 1840.
    — Nicole Saunders, Harper's BAZAAR, 3 June 2019
  • This visual clash — the strong, muscular horse working beneath layers of delicate petticoats — is one beloved by fashion.
    — Leah Dolan, CNN Money, 13 Nov. 2025
  • Elsewhere, Willa’s ensemble at the dance with the petticoat dress was inspired by something Anderson had seen.
    — Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 28 Sep. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'petticoat.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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