trosseau

According to the [|Oxford English Dictionary], a trousseau is a "bride's outfit of clothes, house-linen, etc." According to [|Merriam-Webster], it refers to "the clothes and personal possessions that a woman collects when she is about to get married."

In another sense, [|Trousseau]refers to a "spasm of muscle evoked by pressure on the nerve supplying it."

The word appears several times in //Absalom, Absalom!// After Henry Sutpen and Charles Bon visit Sutpen's Hundred, Rosa sets about "secretly making garments for Judith's trousseau." (60)

... //driving up to the house twice and three times a week, and one time, in the summer when Judith was seventeen,m stopping in on their way overland to Memphis to buy Judith clothes; yes: trousseau. That was the summer following Henry's first year at the University, and he had brought Charles Bon home with him// ... (55).

//[Rosa] ... set about secretly making garments for Judith's trousseau// (60).

–Andrew Cedermark