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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Figtree3, post: 986715, member: 33&quot;]Reading this thread, became interested in the use of the term &quot;beau-catcher.&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>1) According to the <i>Oxford English Dictionary</i> it began by referring to a curl of a woman&#039;s hair. The definition migrated slightly to refer to a spit curl... and also started being spelled &quot;bow-catcher&quot; before becoming obsolete. The following is from the <i>OED</i>. There is no link because I looked it up in a subscription database:</p><p><font size="4"><b>† beau-catcher n. <i>Obsolete</i> a kiss-curl.</b></font></p><p>1818 <i>Publ. Ledger</i> 18 Apr. 3/2&nbsp; A girl..twisting her hair into rings, which they term ‘beau-catchers’.</p><p>1857 M. J. Holmes <i>Meadow-Brook</i> ii&nbsp; Arranging just in front of her ears two spit curls, sometimes called ‘beau catchers’.</p><p>1909 J. R. Ware <i>Passing Eng. Victorian Era</i> 23/1 <i>Beau-catcher</i>, a flat hook-shaped curl, after the Spanish manner, gummed on each temple, and made of the short temple hair, spelt sometimes <i>bow-catcher</i>... Now obsolete on this side of the Pyrenees.</p><p><br /></p><p>2) It was also in Brewer&#039;s <i>Dictionary of Phrase and Fable</i>. Bartleby.com lists this from the 1898 edition of Brewer&#039;s. And there was a term for the curls that a man would wear to attract women as well.</p><p><b>Bow-catcher (<i>A</i>)</b></p><p><b>A corruption of “Beau Catcher,” a love-curl, termed by the French an <i>accroche cœur.</i> A lovecurl worn by a man is a Bell-rope, <i>i.e.</i> a rope to pull the <i>belles</i> with.</b></p><p><a href="https://www.bartleby.com/81/2354.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.bartleby.com/81/2354.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.bartleby.com/81/2354.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p>3) There is a Beaucatcher Mountain in North Carolina, USA. There is a story in the <i>Dictionary of North Carolina Biography </i>about how James Patton is said to have coined the name of the mountain after teasing his sister-in-law:</p><p><a href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/patton/bio.html" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/patton/bio.html" rel="nofollow">https://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/patton/bio.html</a></p><p><br /></p><p>4) Beau Catcher was used as late as 1950 to refer to a woman&#039;s top that could be made from a crochet pattern.</p><p><a href="https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/beau-catcher" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/beau-catcher" rel="nofollow">https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/beau-catcher</a></p><p><br /></p><p>-- That&#039;s as far as my research went. I thought some might be interested.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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