garter

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English garter, also gartier and gartour,^[2] borrowed from Old Northern French gartier (“band just above or below the knee”),^{[3][4][5][6][7]} a variant of Old French jartier,^[8][9][2] now French jarretière, the source of Spanish jarretera and Italian giarrettiera.^[8] Anglo-Norman Anglo-Norman gareter is recorded from 1235–55, for the band and for the Order of the Garter.^[10] The Old French word is formed from garet (“bend of the knee”), also jaret (French jarret),^{[8][9][4][11]} which in Anglo-Norman also meant the hock of a horse and a shank of mutton;^[10] it answers to Spanish jarrete and Italian garretto.^[8][9] Weekley and Partridge take garet as a diminutive of the dialectal garre or jarre, leg,^[12][13] which the OED compares with Spanish garra and Portuguese garra and thinks may be Celtic.^[8] Most dictionaries call it probably or perhaps Celtic, perhaps Gaulish,^{[5][3][9][11][4]} comparing Welsh gar (“shank, leg”), Breton gar (“leg”)^{[8][6][14][7]} and Old Irish gairri (“calves of the legs”).^[6] Ayto supposes an unrecorded Gaulish word for the leg.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

A garter, or any lace fastening hose or shoes: before 1325, in glosses on Bibbesworth's French treatise, where gareters is glossed garthors.^[2][4] The OED's first record is the Order of the Garter in Wynnere and Wastoure, about 1350, and for the band itself the Wycliffite Bible of 1382.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Barnhart notes that one of the earliest English references, about 1353, is to the Order of the Garter, the highest order of English knighthood,^[4] which according to the chronicler Froissart was founded by Edward III about 1344.^[3][15][12] The story that the king picked up a countess's fallen garter and said Honi soit qui mal y pense is recorded only some 250 years later, and Ayto calls it never authenticated;^[15] Etymonline dates it to 1614 and calls it perhaps apocryphal.^[3] The verb, to tie with a garter, appears about 1440 in the Promptorium Parvulorum;^[8][4] surgeons used it for bandaging tightly from 1577 to 1684, and it has meant to fetter since 1604.^[8][16] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as a string or ribbon holding the stocking on the leg.^[17] Later senses are transferred: any band encircling something (1556), sailors' slang for fetters or irons (1780), a heraldic strap buckled in a ring (1869), and the band used in the fairground game of prick the garter (1826).^[8][18] In American use a garter is also a stocking suspender hanging from a belt or corset,^[6][19][16] and garter snake is recorded from 1769 or 1773.^[4][3]

Timeline

• before 1325 – a garter, or a lace for fastening hose.^[2][4]
• c. 1350 – the Garter, the badge of the highest order of English knighthood.^[8]
• 1382 – a band worn round the leg to hold up a stocking.^[8]
• c. 1440 – verb, to tie with a garter.^[8][4]
• 1556 – any band encircling something as a garter does the leg.^[8]
• 1604 – verb, to fetter.^[8][16]
• 1780 – in sailors' slang, fetters or irons.^[8]
• 1826 – the belt used in the game of prick the garter.^[8]
• 1869 – in heraldry, a strap buckled in a ring with its end hanging down.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A band, usually elastic, worn round the leg to hold up a stocking or sock, or round the arm to hold up a shirt sleeve: He wore sleeve garters behind the bar.^[19][6][8]
2. (US) A strap hanging from a girdle, corset or belt with a fastener for holding up a stocking; a suspender.^[6][19][16]
3. the Garter: the badge of the Order of the Garter, the highest order of English knighthood, or membership of it.^[19][6][8]

Verb

1. To fasten with a garter, or as if with one: She gartered her stockings above the knee.^[6][8][16]

Word family

• garterless
• ungarter
• garter belt
• garter snake
• garter stitch
• Order of the Garter

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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)
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
15. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
16. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ 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)
19. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins