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garb

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Etymology and origin of the English word garb

Pronunciation

  • /ɡɑː(ɹ)b/[1]

garb1 sheaf

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1436 Ipswich Domesday
Borrowed from
Anglo-Norman garbe
Ultimate origin
Frankish *garba

Etymology

The word for the sheaf is borrowed from Anglo-Norman garbe and Middle French garbe (“wheatsheaf”), now gerbe.[2][3][4] Old French has the word from the late 12th century, and Anglo-Norman also used it for a bundle of metal rods or of arrows from the mid-13th.[2][3] Several dictionaries call it Old Northern French, beside central Old French jarbe.[5][6][7] It comes from an unattested Frankish word, Frankish *garba in Klein,[2][7] a cognate of Old Dutch garva (found only in the plural), Old Saxon garva and Old High German garba (German Garbe), all meaning “sheaf”;[2][7] Köbler reconstructs Proto-Germanic *garbō (“sheaf”).[8] The OED takes the Germanic word as a by-form, with metathesis, of the base of grab,[2] and Klein and Köbler trace it to Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ- (“to seize”).[7][8] Medieval Latin garba was used for a wheatsheaf from the 8th century, and in Britain also for a tithe on grain and a measure of iron or steel.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A bundle of metal rods: about 1436, in the Domesday of Ipswich, which speaks of eche garbe of bras.[2][4] The OED notes that such a bundle usually held about thirty rods.[2] The Shorter Oxford dates the word to the early 16th century.[5]

Semantic evolution

From about 1460 a book of arms uses garbe for a sheaf of wheat and for a bunch of cumin shown on a coat of arms.[4][2] The everyday senses died out, and the word survives only in heraldry, for a sheaf of wheat or other grain.[2][5][6]

Timeline

  • c. 1436 – a bundle of metal rods.[2][4]
  • c. 1460 – a sheaf of wheat or another crop, in heraldry.[2][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. In heraldry, a sheaf of wheat or other grain.[6][9][5][2]
  2. (historical) A bundle of metal rods.[2][4]

garb2 clothing

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1591 John Lyly, Endimion
Borrowed from
Middle French garbe
Ultimate origin
Italian garbo

Etymology

The word for clothing is partly borrowed from Middle French garbe (“grace, elegance; graceful outline”), now galbe, and partly borrowed from Italian garbo (“form; grace, elegance”).[2][10][11][6] The OED dates the French word to 1551 and the Italian one to before 1529, and notes that modern French replaced r with l.[2] Most dictionaries take the Italian word from Germanic,[12][10][7][13] and the OED derives it from garbare (“to be pleasant”), from the Germanic base of Old English gierwan (“to prepare”).[2] Etymonline and Hoad compare Old High German garawī (“adornment; dress, equipment”), from Proto-Germanic *garwī (“equipment, adornment”), and relate it to gear.[11][14][7][8] Merriam-Webster Unabridged instead suggests an origin in Arabic, in a word for a mould or model.[6] The Italian word also passed into Spanish garbo and Portuguese garbo.[2] The verb is from the noun.[2][11][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Grace, elegance, especially of manners or appearance: 1591, in John Lyly's Endimion.[2][10][6][11]

Semantic evolution

Around 1600 the word came to mean a manner or style, a fashion, and a person's outward bearing;[2] Ben Jonson used it in these senses,[2][11] and Barnhart cites Shakespeare's Henry V (1599).[10] The sense "style of dress, clothing" is recorded from 1608,[2] or from the 1620s according to Barnhart and Etymonline,[10][11] and the other senses had died out by the 18th and 19th centuries.[2] Trench (1859) noted that a person's dress was once only a small part of his garb, which took in his whole outward presentation, and that it is now the whole of it.[15] Johnson (1755) already gave "dress; clothes; habit" first, quoting Milton's "words cloath'd in reason's garb".[16] The verb, to cover or adorn, is found from 1604 in the OED,[2] although Barnhart and Etymonline date it to 1836, in Newman,[10][11] and Merriam-Webster to 1846;[6] the participle garbed goes back to the 1590s.[11] In Yorkshire to garb or garb out meant to dress in gaudy finery.[17][2]

Timeline

  • 1591 – grace, elegance (obsolete by 1670).[2][10]
  • 1600 – manner, style, fashion (obsolete by 1831).[2]
  • 1604 – verb, to cover or adorn.[2]
  • 1605 – outward bearing, demeanour (obsolete by 1706).[2]
  • 1608 – style of dress; clothing.[2]
  • 1613 – something that covers like clothing.[2]
  • 1673 – verb, to dress, especially in distinctive clothes.[2]
  • 1868 – verb, in Yorkshire, to dress gaudily.[2][17]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Clothing, especially the distinctive dress of a profession or occasion: a priest in clerical garb.[13][6][2]
  2. A style or fashion of dress.[13][18]
  3. An outward appearance or covering: old ideas in a new garb.[13][18][2]
  4. (obsolete, 1591–1670) Grace, elegance of manners or appearance.[2][6][5]
  5. (obsolete, 1600–1831) Manner, style; a prevailing fashion.[2][6][5]
  6. (obsolete, 1605–1706) Outward bearing or demeanour.[2][6]

Verb

  1. To clothe or dress, especially in distinctive clothes: The choir was garbed in blue robes.[13][6][2]
  2. To cover as if with clothing.[6][2]

Word family

  • garbless
  • undergarb
  • ungarbed

References

  1. ^ 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 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  4. ^ a b c d e f Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b c d e f Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  9. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  14. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  15. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
  16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  17. ^ a b 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)
  18. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Garb.” Etymologically, 8 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/garb. Accessed 9 Nov. 2026.

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