What is a "zona"?

I’d like to thank the committee and planners of the Connecticut Library Association Annual Conference for being so welcoming…and forgiving of a speaker recovering from laryngitis. I had a wonderful time, and enjoyed giving my talk.

I also wanted to answer a question posed in the question and answer period…an audience member mentioned a word she’d read in a Regency-set novel, and wondered if we knew what it was. From the context, she thought it might be an article of clothing: the word was “zona”.

I did some digging and asking around. Zona is the Latin word for belt or girdle (no, not girdle in the modern sense of the word), and it seems it was used very early in the first years of the 19th century to indicate a decorative belt worn on a woman’s dress. Clothing styles in this period, especially women’s, borrowed heavily from Classical Greece and Rome, so I guess it isn’t so surprising that a Roman article of dress should make an appearance.

I hope this helps!