Etymologically
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blazer

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈbleɪzə/[1]
  • US: /ˈbleɪzəɹ/[1]

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

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.