Harlequin in motley attire, year 1761 by Maurice Sand

Motley refers to the traditional costume of the court jester or the harlequin character in commedia dell'arte. The latter wears a patchwork of red, green and blue diamonds that is still a fashion motif. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (579x1033, 202 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Harlequin Commedia dellarte User:19Harlequin19 ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (579x1033, 202 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Harlequin Commedia dellarte User:19Harlequin19 ... This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... A jester or fool is a specific type of clown mostly associated with the Middle Ages. ... Arlecchino (also known as Harlequin in English, Arlequin in French) is the most popular of the zanni or comic servant characters from the Italian Commedia dellArte. ... Karel Dujardins set his closely-observed scene of a traveling troupes makeshift stage against idealized ruins in the Roman Campagna: dated 1657 (Louvre Museum) Commedia dellarte (Italian: play of professional artists also interpreted as comedy of humors), also known as Extemporal Comedy, was a popular form of improvisational... Fashion illustration by George Barbier of a gown by Jeanne Paquin, 1912, from La Gazette du bon ton, the most influential fashion magazine of its era. ...

The word motley is thought by the Oxford English Dictionary to be cognate with medley, although the unrelated mottled has also contributed to the meaning. The word is most commonly used as an adjective or noun, but is also seen as a verb and adverb. The Oxford English Dictionary print set The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a dictionary published by the Oxford University Press (OUP), and is the most successful dictionary of the English language, (not to be confused with the one-volume Oxford Dictionary of English, formerly New Oxford Dictionary of English, of... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a noun or pronoun (called the adjectives subject), giving more information about what the noun or pronoun refers to. ... In linguistics, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which is defined in terms of how its members combine with other grammatical kinds of expressions. ... It has been suggested that Verbal agreement be merged into this article or section. ... An adverb is a part of speech. ...

During the reign of Elizabeth I, motley served the important purpose of keeping the fool outside the social hierarchy and therefore not subject to class distinction. Since the fool was outside the dress laws, (sumptuary law) the fool was able to speak more freely. Elizabeth I redirects here. ... Sumptuary laws (from Latin sumptuariae leges) were laws that regulated and reinforced social hierarchies and morals through restrictions on clothing, food, and luxury expenditures. ...

Likewise, motley did not have to be checkered and has been recently thought to be one pattern with different colored threads running through it.