E. Cobham Brewer 18101897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
A glossy silk; a corruption of the French word lustrine (from lustre).
To speak in lutestring. Flash, highly-polished oratory. The expression was first used in Junius. Shakespeare has taffeta phrases and silken terms precise. We call inflated speech fustian (q.v.) or bombast (q.v.); say a man talks stuff; term a book or speech made up of other mens brains, shoddy (q.v.); sailors call telling a story spinning a yarn, etc. etc.