I’ve started reading Yuri Annenkov’s 1934 novel Повесть о пустяках [A story about trifles], set in Russia in the first couple of decades of the century; it was looked on with disfavor by almost everyone, because not only did it use suspiciously modernist devices (montage, ornamental prose, etc.), but the “trifles” are two revolutions, WWI, and the Civil War, and nobody was up for treating world-historical events as background for the personal life of some nobody. I, however, am up for it, and am enjoying it so far (even if the opening is basically a straight ripoff of Bely’s Petersburg).

Now, at one point he’s describing a turn-of-the-century interior and he uses the word ламбрекен [lambrekén], which meant nothing to me. No problem, that’s why God created dictionaries, so I turned to my trusty Oxford and found it defined as “pelmet.” I cursed and looked that up, and discovered that it means (to quote Wiktionary) “A decorative item that is placed above a window to hide the curtain mechanisms, visually similar to a cornice or valance.” Ah, now valance I knew, thanks to the educational efforts of my first wife, so the sense was more or less clear. But what of the etymology? Wiktionary doesn’t have one, but the OED (entry revised 2005) says:

Probably a variant of palmette n. (compare sense 2 at that entry), palmette designs having been a conventional ornament on window cornices. Compare:

1925 Pelmet, a word used by upholsterers and sometimes by art dealers, who prefer the word ‘palmette’, to denote the horizontal stiff curtains or valance hiding the rod, rings and headings of the hanging curtain decorating a door, window, bed, etc. J. Penderel-Brodhurst & E. J. Layton, Glossary of English Furniture 123

But what about ламбрекен? Well, that’s straightforwardly from French lambrequin, for which Wiktionary says:

From Middle French lambequin, perhaps from Middle Dutch lappekijn, lepperkijn, from Old Dutch lappakīn. By surface analysis, lambeau (“scrap, strip”) +‎ -quin (diminutive suffix).

And it turns out that French word was borrowed straight into English as well; the OED (entry from 1901) has the sense “A scarf or piece of material worn over the helmet as a covering” from 1725 and this more modern one:

2. U.S. A cornice with a valance of pendent labels or pointed pieces, placed over a door or window; a short curtain or piece of drapery (with the lower edge either scalloped or straight) suspended for ornament from a mantel-shelf. Also transferred and attributive.

1883 Mr. Barker smiled under the lambrikin of his moustache. F. M. Crawford, Dr. Claudius iii […]

1888 The carved marble mantle-piece was concealed by a lambrequin. T. W. Higginson, Women & Men 162

The whole quest was worth it for the phrase “the lambrikin of his moustache” (seen here at Google Books).