Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A head-dress which consists of a skin bonnet set with feathers of the golden eagle and often provided with a long trailer decorated with feathers, worn by the Indian warriors of North America.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • He was naked except for a short war-bonnet and breech-clout, his face and chest glistening with ochre and vermillion, at his waist were strapped two long-barrelled Colts, a stone axe hung from his decorated saddle-blanket, and he carried a feathered lance.

    Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

  • His leggings and jacket were red, and he carried a short war-bonnet in his hand.

    Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

  • As he rode up to Anson Mills, I noticed young Standing Bear in war-bonnet and leggings, with lance and carbine, at the head of one of the lines; I beckoned him to the tailboard and asked him what was up.

    Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

  • Red Cloud was getting to his feet, his face a grim mask; as he raised a hand to the assembly and faced the commission, silence fell again; he pushed back the trailing gorgeous wings of his war-bonnet and fixed us with his gleaming black eyes.

    Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

  • There was a chief in a war-bonnet who seemed to be haranguing them; presently he lifted his lance and howled, and the whole crowd came in like banshees, stirrup to stirrup, straight for the gate.

    Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

  • Why, the last time I'd seen him he'd been in breech-clout and war-bonnet, all smeared with buffalo blood ... now he was rumbling on in Sioux, and I was struggling to identify those sonorous vowels, dredging words from the back of my mind.

    Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

  • He alone had no war-bonnet or feathers, or anything but a coloured shirt; he was young and wiry, lean-faced and lank-haired and without paint-but with those eyes he didn't need any.

    Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

  • Their chief, a splendid old file with silver dollars in his braids, and a war-bonnet of feathers trailing to his heels, raised his head to me; he had a chin and nose like the prow of a cruiser, and furrows in his cheeks you could have planted crops in.

    Isabelle Estelle Bruno 2010

  • He was naked except for a short war-bonnet and breech-clout, his face and chest glistening with ochre and vermillion, at his waist were strapped two long-barrelled Colts, a stone axe hung from his decorated saddle-blanket, and he carried a feathered lance.

    Flashman And The Redskins Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1982

  • He alone had no war-bonnet or feathers, or anything but a coloured shirt; he was young and wiry, lean-faced and lank-haired and without paint-but with those eyes he didn't need any.

    Flashman And The Redskins Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1982

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