An ornamental or decorative covering or arrangement for the head; a headdress, crown, or elaborate head adornment.
From 'head' + 'tire,' where 'tire' comes from Old French 'tirier' (to arrange or draw out). This term was particularly common in descriptions of women's elaborate headwear from the 14th-17th centuries.
Medieval and Renaissance headtires were sometimes so elaborate that they required their own support structures—wires, frames, and padding—and could take hours to arrange, making them status symbols that advertised both wealth and the woman's access to servants' labor.
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