1historical A large ornamental punchbowl with a scalloped rim, usually made of silver.
Example sentencesExamples
The silver-gilt monteith bowl was made for the firm of Wakely and Wheeler in 1903.
It was customary to donate silver to the college in these circumstances, and his unnecessarily extravagant gift was a monteith weighing no less than 46 oz 10 dwt.
While the Fitzwilliam is returning the monteith to an heir of the original owner, the British Museum is by law not allowed to return the dish.
The decoration is ascribed to an anonymous engraver whose hand has been identified on approximately eighteen monteiths of the period.
Even the most sumptuously set dinners today pale in comparison to those that included such objects as the magnificent monteith and wine cistern illustrated on this page, creations of early English silversmiths.
A silver tazza bearing the Royal African Company arms and made the same year as the Garthorne monteith, but by a different maker, is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
The next, somewhat more conventional, gift was a monteith by the Boston silversmiths Daniel Henchman and Nathaniel Hurd, given to Dartmouth by the royal governor of New Hampshire, John Wentworth, in 1773.
This catalogue features an enormous range of forms made between the sixteenth and the early nineteenth centuries, from garnitures and dinner services to coffeepots and monteiths, variously decorated in patterns and palettes for which these wares are renowned.
2archaic A cotton handkerchief with a pattern of white spots on a coloured background.
Example sentencesExamples
Monteiths are dyed all of one colour, and have spots of white.
Turkey-red Monteiths have been selling at high prices.
The doctor perspired extremely, and had a Monteith handkerchief hanging over his brows from beneath his hat.
Their goods were known all over the Continent as Monteiths.
Synonyms
pocket handkerchief
Origin
Late 17th century: from the Scottish surname Monteith.