chino

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish chino (“toasted”), in the American Spanish sense,^[2][3][4][5] so called from the cloth's usual tan or khaki colour.^[2][3][4] The further history of the Spanish word is uncertain.^[6][7] The American Heritage Dictionary glosses the American Spanish word as "mestizo; yellowish", referring to the cloth's original tan colour, and derives it probably from the same Spanish word in its sense "Chinese", from the name of China.^[8] Etymonline notes that the word earlier meant a child of mixed parentage, through the notion of skin colour, and that this may be from, or influenced by, Quechua čina (“female animal, servant”); it adds that the sources disagree on whether the racial sense or the colour sense came first.^[3] Dictionary.com likewise traces it to a Mexican Spanish word for a person of mixed ancestry, whose further origin is disputed.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A cotton twill cloth, usually khaki in colour: 1943, in a book by T. R. St George, published in 1944.^[2] Merriam-Webster also gives 1943 as the first date,^[9] and Etymonline dates both the cloth and the plural chinos, for clothes made of it, to 1943.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Merriam-Webster describes the cloth as the kind of twill used for military uniforms.^[9] From the start the word was used both for the fabric and, usually in the plural, for garments made of it, especially trousers;^[2][3] it is also used attributively, as in chino trousers.^[2][5] Collins labels the cloth sense as American.^[7]

Timeline

• 1943 – a cotton twill cloth, usually khaki; also, in the plural, trousers made of it.^[2][9][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hard-wearing cotton twill cloth, usually khaki in colour.^[9][7][2]
2. chinos: trousers or other clothes made of this cloth: He wore a blue shirt and a pair of chinos.^[9][2][5]

Adjective

1. Made of this cloth.^[5][2]

Related words

• China
• Chinese

Usage notes

Other words are spelled the same way.^[2][9] The OED records Chino, a Chinese person, from 1588, from Spanish chino used as a noun.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged has chino as a dated word for a Latin American person of mixed ancestry, from the masculine of American Spanish china, an Indian woman, which it traces to Quechua and Aymara; and chino for the sweet orange, from Spanish naranja china, Chinese orange.^[9]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster