blouse

Etymology

It is borrowed from French blouse, a loose garment for the upper body worn especially by farm labourers and workmen, recorded in French from 1788,^[2][3][4] itself of uncertain or unknown origin.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Partridge gives the French date as 1798.^[7] Gamillscheg, cited by Etymonline, and Barnhart compare Provençal blouso (“short (of wool)”);^[4][3] Dictionary.com suggests a French phrase meaning "garment of short, pure wool", tracing the Provençal word to Old High German blōz (“naked”).^[8] The OED thinks the word may be a variant of Middle French blaude, biaude, a similar garment of the 16th century, from Old French bliaut (“a kind of tunic”), though this leaves the s unexplained;^[2] the American Heritage Dictionary likewise derives it from blaude, altered under the influence of blousse (“wool scraps”).^[9] Klein derived it from Medieval Latin pelusia, a garment named after the Egyptian city of Pelusium, where Etymonline notes clothing was supposedly made.^[10][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A light, loose garment for the upper body, usually worn by men, like the smock of a French workman or farm labourer: 1822, in M. Colston's Journal of a Tour in France, Switzerland, & Italy.^[2] Etymonline counts 1822 as the French word quoted in English and dates the English word to 1828,^[4] as Barnhart does;^[3] Merriam-Webster dates it to 1823.^[11]

Semantic evolution

At first the word named the blue blouse of the French working man,^[12] worn as a protection from dust; a fashion report of 1823 already disapproved of women copying it.^[4] In the 19th century it was applied to the smocks and tunics of English farm labourers,^[12] while from 1834 to 1892 it also named, in French settings, to a workman or peasant himself.^[2] It was used of a loose garment for small children from 1840,^[2] of a sailor's blouse from 1849, and of the jacket of an American soldier's uniform from 1852.^[2] The OED records the woman's garment, at first a loose bodice, from 1843,^[2] Barnhart and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins from 1870,^[3][12] a sense French also developed at the end of the century.^[3] Now chiefly a women's garment, it gave the British insult big girl's blouse, a weak or oversensitive man, from 1968.^[2][12] A jockey's silk jacket has been a blouse since 1889, while from 1906 Australian racing slang used the verb blouse for beating a rival by a narrow margin, which the OED thinks may allude to the thin silk.^[2] The English pronunciation, unlike the French, follows older loans such as spouse.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 1788 – French blouse, a workman's smock.^[2][3][4]
• 1822 – a loose shirt-like garment, as worn by French workmen.^[2][4]
• 1840 – a loose garment for a small child.^[2]
• 1843 – a woman's loose bodice.^[2]
• 1846 – verb, to dress in a blouse.^[2]
• 1852 – the jacket of a US soldier's uniform.^[2]
• 1870 – a blouse "for a young lady".^[12][3]
• 1889 – a jockey's silk jacket.^[2]
• 1894 – verb, to make a garment hang loosely over a belt.^[2]
• 1906 – Australian racing slang, to beat narrowly.^[2]
• 1939 – the short jacket of battledress.^[2]
• 1968 – big girl's blouse, a weak or fussy man.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A woman's or girl's shirtlike garment covering the body from the neck to the waist or hips.^[13][2]
2. A loose smock-like garment, often belted, worn by workmen or peasants.^[13][11][2]
3. A loose jacket forming part of a military uniform, belted or gathered at the waist.^[13][11][2]
4. The silk jacket worn by a jockey.^[2]
5. big girl's blouse (British, slang): a weak, cowardly or oversensitive man.^[2][12]

Verb

1. To hang, or make hang, in loose full folds, especially over a belt: The jacket blouses slightly at the waist.^[13][11][2]

Word family

• blousy
• blouselike
• overblouse

Related words

• blouson

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 t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ a b c d e f Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins