lady vs petticoat

lady

noun
  • A woman: an adult female human. 

  • A title for someone married to a lord or gentleman. 

  • A woman’s breast. 

  • A polite reference or form of address to women. 

  • A wife or girlfriend; a sweetheart. 

  • A title that can be used instead of the formal terms of marchioness, countess, viscountess, or baroness. 

  • A queen (the playing card). 

  • A woman of breeding or higher class, a woman of authority. 

  • A woman to whom the particular homage of a knight was paid; a woman to whom one is devoted or bound. 

  • The mistress of a household. 

  • The feminine of lord. 

  • Toilets intended for use by women. 

  • Used to address a female. 

  • Who is a woman. 

  • A five-pound note. (Rhyming slang, Lady Godiva for fiver.) 

  • A queen. 

verb
  • To address as “lady”. 

petticoat

noun
  • A woman. 

  • A light woman's undergarment worn under a dress or skirt, and hanging either from the shoulders or (now especially) from the waist; a kind of slip, worn to make the skirt fuller, or for extra warmth. 

  • A woman's undercoat, worn to be displayed beneath an open gown. 

  • A fisherman's loose canvas or oilcloth skirt. 

  • A bell-mouthed piece over the exhaust nozzles in the smokebox of a locomotive, strengthening and equalising the draught through the boiler-tubes. 

  • A type of ornamental skirt or underskirt, often displayed below a dress; chiefly in plural, designating a woman's skirts collectively. 

  • A tight, usually padded undercoat worn by men over a shirt and under the doublet. 

verb
  • To dress in a petticoat. 

How often have the words lady and petticoat occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )