bluestocking [L17th] During the 17th and 18th centuries men favoured blue worsted stockings for informal daytime wear, but never on formal occasions, when black silk stockings were in order. In about 1750 the botanist and writer Benjamin Stillingfleet was asked to an assembly for literary conversation at Montagu House in London. These gatherings were notable for being attended by women with literary and intellectual tastes. Stillingfleet felt he had to refuse the invitation as he was too poor to afford the formal dress required, but his hostess told him to come as he was, in his informal day clothes. So he turned up in his everyday blue worsted stockings and started a trend. Some sneered at these assemblies, using such terms as bluestocking assemblies and bluestocking ladies, and an intellectual woman soon became just a bluestocking.