fez

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ottoman Turkish فس (fes),^{[2][3][4][5][1]} perhaps through French fez,^[2][3][5] which Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster Unabridged give as the immediate source.^[6][7][8] The Turkish word is spelt like the name of the town of Fez in Morocco, where the cap was formerly made, and the dictionaries take the cap as named after the town.^[2][7][9][3] The American Heritage Dictionary adds that the city exported such caps to the Ottoman Empire.^[4] In Turkish the word is first recorded in Meninski's dictionary of 1680, for both the country and a red felt cap peculiar to it.^[10][11] Tietze argues from its vowel e that Turkish took the name not from Arabic but from the Lingua Franca of Mediterranean trade,^[11] while Lokotsch traces it to the Arabic name of the Moroccan capital.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Turkish cap: 1803, in F. W. Blagdon's translation of P. S. Pallas's Travels.^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date the word to 1802,^[6][7] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to about 1803.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The fez was a headdress of the Maghreb before the Ottoman clothing law of 1829 made it the official headgear of the empire;^[10] Etymonline credits Sultan Mahmud II with making it part of Turkish official dress.^[7] The OED describes it as a dull crimson skullcap shaped like a truncated cone, formerly of wool and later of felt, with a long black tassel, and as formerly the national headdress of the Turks.^[2][3] In Europe and America it was adapted for women's hats.^[8]

Timeline

• 1803 – a brimless red cap with a tassel, worn by Turkish men.^[2][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A brimless, flat-topped red felt cap shaped like a cut-off cone, usually with a tassel, worn by men in some Muslim countries and formerly the national headdress of Turkey: The waiter wore a fez with a black tassel.^{[13][8][3][2]}

Word family

• fezzed
• fezzy

Usage notes

The plural is fezzes, also fezes;^[8][13] the adjective fezzed means wearing a fez.^[13][3]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Nişanyan, Sevan, Nişanyan Sözlük: Çağdaş Türkçenin Etimolojisi (online edition)
11. ^ a b Tietze, Andreas (2002–2018), Tarihi ve Etimolojik Türkiye Türkçesi Lugatı, Istanbul: Simurg; Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences
12. ^ Lokotsch, Karl (1927), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der europäischen (germanischen, romanischen und slavischen) Wörter orientalischen Ursprungs, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins