What does corset mean?
A corset is a close-fitting undergarment designed to shape and support the wearer's torso, typically stiffened with whalebone, steel, or other rigid stays and tightened with laces. Worn by both men and, far more commonly, women from roughly the sixteenth century onward, it became an emblem of Western fashionable dress, cinching the waist and moulding the figure into whatever silhouette the era demanded. The word today evokes Victorian and Edwardian fashion, and it appears frequently in historical fiction, costume design, and discussions of how restrictive clothing shaped — and sometimes harmed — the bodies of those who wore them. By extension, 'corset' can be used figuratively for any tight constraint on freedom or expression. Its derivatives include the adjective 'corseted', meaning confined or bound as if by a corset, and 'corsetry', referring to corsets collectively or their manufacture. Few garments carry as much cultural weight in so few letters.
A stiffened, laced undergarment worn to shape and support the torso, especially one that narrows the waist.
"Museum conservators carefully eased the antique corset onto the dressmaker's form."
Historical corsets are distinguished from modern fashion corsets, which are usually worn as outerwear and are rarely intended for waist reduction.
(Rare, transitive) To enclose or confine someone or something tightly, as though in a corset.
"The narrative corsets its characters within a society of rigid expectations."
This verbal sense is literary and infrequent; forms include 'corseted' and 'corseting'.
Regular plural; used when referring to multiple garments or to corsets as a category of dress.
"The exhibition displayed corsets from four different centuries."
Victorian corsets were so tightly laced that the phrase 'straitlaced' originally described women who wore them snugly — and by extension, those of strict morals.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of corset
The word 'corset' comes from French 'corset', a diminutive form ultimately based on 'corps', meaning body, which itself descends from the Latin 'corpus'. It entered English in the early seventeenth century, when such garments were also known simply as 'stays'. The same Latin root gives English a wide family of body-related words, including 'corpse', 'corps', and 'corsage' — the latter once denoting a bodice before it came to mean a bouquet worn at the shoulder.
Related word forms
How corset is actually used
Corset is a neutral, standard word in both British and American English. Historically it carries strong connotations of Victorian and Edwardian fashion, and in modern usage it often appears in historical, costume, fashion-design, or figurative contexts rather than everyday dress. The verb form 'to corset', meaning to confine or restrict, is comparatively rare and literary.
Easily confused with corset
A 'cosset' means to pamper excessively (or a pet lamb), whereas a 'corset' is a structured undergarment that shapes the torso.