Talk:spectacle

Interesting use in Dickens
In Dickens' Dombey and Son:


 * There was something queer, too, about Mrs Blimber’s head at dinner-time, as if she had screwed her hair up too tight; and though Miss Blimber showed a graceful bunch of plaited hair on each temple, she seemed to have her own little curls in paper underneath, and in a play-bill too; for Paul read “Theatre Royal” over one of her sparkling spectacles, and “Brighton” over the other.

Here it's clear from context that "spectacles" are a pair of glasses, so the use of "one of" to indicate a single lens is unusual. Equinox ◑ 02:48, 25 February 2022 (UTC)


 * I think that "spectacles" in this case refers to the lenses of the glasses instead of the glasses themselves. This could be just meronymic use or it could indicate a unrecorded sense of the term. &mdash;The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 09:23, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

RFV discussion: February 2022

 * Something that helps understanding.
 * Povert' a spectacle is, as thinketh me, Through which he may his very friendes see.
 * Povert' a spectacle is, as thinketh me, Through which he may his very friendes see.

Removed / moved to Middle English by Astova. J3133 (talk) 21:06, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
 * OED gives this as a figurative subsense of the eye-glass sense (our sense 3), alongside other cites that use phrases like "look upon it with the oldest spectacles of a Critick" and "rose-coloured spectacles". If we don't want the figurative sense, we can just delete it, I think. This, that and the other (talk) 09:36, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

RFV-resolved, sense deleted as an unnecessarily specific metaphorical use.

RFV discussion: July–September 2023
Rfv-sense: A spyglass; a looking-glass. - obsolete, used by Chaucer, so maybe didn't survive out of M.Eng Enbleepbleep (talk) 23:38, 7 July 2023 (UTC)


 * The Chaucer quote under Middle English is a figurative sense anyway.
 * We already have a sense " glasses", and many uses of "through his spectacle" would likely fit that sense. OED's corresponding sense is worded much more generally. This, that and the other (talk) 09:48, 24 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Failed Jewle V (talk) 17:29, 8 September 2023 (UTC)