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Tricoteuse [trikotœz // tri-ko-tyoos]
noun
A woman who knits; specifically to women who, during the French Revolution, sat and knitted at meetings of the Convention or at guillotinings.
From the French tricot, knitting, tricoter, to knit.
1830 Hazlitt Life of Napoleon Buonaparte I. vi. 284
It was this [popular fury] that inspired the Furies of the Guillotine, and sat and smiled in the galleries of the Convention with the tricoteuses of Robespierre!
1973 Listener 22 Nov. 727
The wife of the production manager sits sourly knitting on set like a tricoteuse at the guillotine.
I was doing so well until I realised that I really had no idea what to write as a usage example for tricoteuse. Unfortunately I've misplaced my copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel, because I recall that the Pimpernel disguises himself as a wine-selling tricoteuse in order to smuggle aristocrats out of Paris in casks!