Definition of "neckcloth"

[…] I did remember I had among the Seamens Cloaths which were sav’d out of the Ship, some Neckcloaths of Callicoe or Muslin; and with some Pieces of these I made three small Sieves, but proper enough for the Work […]

1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], 3rd edition, London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], published 1719, page 144

Will she thy linen wash or hosen darn, / And knit thee gloves made of her own-spun yarn? / Will she with huswife’s hand provide thy meat, / And ev’ry Sunday morn thy neckcloth plait? / Which o’er thy kersey doublet spreading wide, / In service time drew Cic’ly’s eyes aside.

1720, John Gay, “Tuesday; or, the Ditty” in Poems on Several Occasions, London: H. Lintot, R. Tonson & S. Draper, 1745, Volume I, p. 85

He was a man of such rigid refinement, that he would have starved rather than have dined without a white neck-cloth.

1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 9, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, page 115

He was very cleanly dressed, in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, and nankeen trowsers; and his fine frilled shirt and cambric neckcloth looked unusually soft and white, reminding my strolling fancy (I call to mind) of the plumage on the breast of a swan.

1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 15, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, page 157

It was not until Lestrade succeeded in getting his hand inside his neck-cloth and half-strangling him that we made him realise that his struggles were of no avail; and even then we felt no security until we had pinioned his feet as well as his hands.

1891, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, chapter 7, in A Study in Scarlet. A Detective Story, 3rd edition, London, New York, N.Y.: Ward, Lock, Bowden, and Co., […], published 1892