blazer

Etymology

It is formed from English blaze + -er, from the verb meaning to burn brightly,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} so that it first meant a thing that blazes or shines.^[5][7] The verb comes from the noun, Middle English blase, from Old English blæse (“torch, firebrand; bright flame”),^[3][2][8] from Proto-Germanic *blasǭ (“torch”),^[8] from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to shine, be white”).^[8][3] Its cognates include Old Saxon blas (“white”), Middle High German blas (“bald”), Dutch bles (“white spot”) and German blass (“pale”).^[3][2] The jacket was named from the red flannel jackets of the Lady Margaret boat club of St John's College, Cambridge.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Anything that blazes or shines, such as a comet or, familiarly, a very bright day: before 1635, in the poems of R. Corbet.^[2][6] Etymonline dates it to the 1630s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In colloquial American English of the 1840s a blazer was a person or thing that attracts attention: "the mother's a blazer!" (1845).^[2][9][3] The jacket sense began in British university slang about 1880, for the bright jackets worn at cricket, boating and other sports;^[3][2][4] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1863.^[10] The garment later became an unlined jacket of light material, often flannel, worn without matching trousers.^[2][11] Barnhart notes that in the United States it is usually of blue flannel, sometimes with a school badge on the breast pocket, while in Britain it is often brightly coloured or striped;^[4] the New Oxford Dictionary distinguishes the coloured jacket of a school or sports team from a plain one, usually dark blue, worn for fairly formal occasions.^[11] Other uses are minor: a small cooking apparatus in North America (1889),^[2][6] and in northern English dialect a sheet of metal set against the bars of a grate to make the fire draw (1892),^[2][12] recorded in Northumberland, Durham, Yorkshire and Lancashire.^[12] In American railroad slang it was an overheated axle bearing with its packing on fire.^[10]

Timeline

• before 1635 – a thing that blazes or shines.^[2]
• 1845 – a person or thing that attracts attention, in American English.^[2][9]
• 1880 – a bright jacket worn for cricket, boating and other sports.^[2][4] Merriam-Webster dates this sense to 1863.^[10]
• 1889 – a small cooking apparatus, in North America.^[2]
• 1892 – a sheet of metal set before a grate to draw the fire, in northern dialect.^[2][12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A jacket not forming part of a suit, often in the colours or stripes of a club or school, or plain and usually dark blue: The team wore green blazers to the dinner.^{[10][13][11][2]}
2. (chiefly US) A person or thing that attracts attention.^[2][6][9]
3. (North American) A small cooking apparatus.^[2][6]
4. (northern England) A sheet of metal placed before a fire to make it draw.^[2][12]

Word family

• blazered
• trailblazer

Related words

• blaze

Usage notes

A separate blazer, one who proclaims or publishes something, from blaze in the sense to make public, is recorded from about 1450 and is now rare or obsolete;^[2][6][10] Johnson (1755) defined it as "one that spreads reports", quoting Spenser's "blazers of crime".^[14] A blazer who marks trees or a trail by cutting off a piece of bark is recorded from 1869.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
10. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b c Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.