"Nappe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... perhaps much the same thing. Wardroper is of course wardrobe keeper, but Chaucer uses wardrope (B. 1762) in the sense which Fr. garde-robe now usually has. The Lavender, Launder or Lander saw to the washing. Napier, from Fr. nappe, cloth, meant the servant who looked after the napery. The martial sound with which this distinguished name strikes a modern ear is due to historical association, assisted, as I have somewhere read, by its riming with rapier! The water-supply ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley |
