Lorgnettes

If you have trouble reading the dinner menu, lorgnettes are a fashionable and elegant alternative to reading glasses. ❋ Ari Cohen (2011)

As in other social cities, the opera was the place to see and be seen, and throughout the evening, the Four Hundred turned their lorgnettes to the boxes opposite and paid visits. ❋ Unknown (2009)

You can almost picture Megan McArdle and Alison Schrager glowering as these working Americans mow their lawns and mop their floors, looking down on them through golden lorgnettes perched on noses wrinkled in disapproval. ❋ Unknown (2010)

Opera patrons look through their lorgnettes at a werewolf coming in from the rain and shaking ❋ Kevin Maher (2009)

Looking back on the scene, the baronet's daughter could still picture this group of elderly ladies, "quite contented like plump hens in cubby holes, sitting in dim solitude ... with lorgnettes fixed at the dripping parade." ❋ Unknown (2009)

In midtown, Hollywood grande dame Glenn Close is recognized for her contributions to the arts (lorgnettes! boiled bunnies!) at the Princess Grace Awards Gala at Cipriani. ❋ Unknown (2008)

Excited talk began in every box, every woman equipped herself with an opera glass, elderly men grew young again, and polished the glasses of their lorgnettes with their gloves. ❋ Unknown (2007)

The ground beneath her feet was carpeted now with abandoned programmes and feather headdresses, lorgnettes and opera glasses, like dry bones in an ancient sepulchre, splintered underfoot. ❋ Mosse, Kate (2007)

Have her eyes been examined—she complains that her lorgnettes no longer work. ❋ F. SCOTT FITZGERALD (1994)

When he walked into a drawing room, something he rarely did anymore, lorgnettes were raised and bodies began to slide toward him as though the whole room had been upended. ❋ JULIE BAUMGOLD (2005)

Sometimes they wore mannish jackets and carried little sticks or riding crops that they switched against their bare legs as they stared through their lorgnettes. ❋ JULIE BAUMGOLD (2005)