gauze

Etymology

It is borrowed from French gaze,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]} which the OED and Etymonline call of uncertain origin,^[2][3] and which is apparently first recorded in the 16th century.^[2] Most dictionaries take it as probably or perhaps named after Gaza, the town in Palestine, where such cloth was said to be made,^{[5][7][8][9][10][6][11][12]} on the pattern of damask and denim.^[8] The American Heritage Dictionary, Barnhart and Wiktionary instead derive it from Arabic قَزّ (qazz, “raw silk”),^[13][4][1] which the American Heritage Dictionary and Barnhart trace further to Persian,^[13][4] possibly through Spanish gasa;^[13][4] Partridge leaves the choice open.^[14] The OED takes the Spanish word and Dutch gaas as coming from the French instead, and reports that Medieval Latin gazzatum, a stuff forbidden to monks in 1279, is usually identified with it, and that Du Cange conjectured a name from Gaza, but finds no evidence for either supposition.^[2] Etymonline agrees that neither guess has evidence behind it.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A very thin, transparent fabric of silk, linen or cotton: 1561, in an inventory of the royal wardrobe,^[2][5] spelled gais.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The word first named a fine dress fabric: Johnson (1755) defines it as a kind of thin transparent silk, and quotes Swift's "Brocadoes and damasks, and tabbies and gauzes".^[15] In the 19th century it was extended to a similar mesh of fine wire, recorded by the OED in 1842 and by the Shorter Oxford already in the early 19th century,^[2][6] and in the same year, in Tennyson, to a thin transparent haze,^[2] as in Hardy's "A blue gauze of smoke".^[6] The Shorter Oxford also gives a use in medicine, for thin loose material for dressings and swabs,^[6] which Merriam-Webster describes as a cotton fabric like cheesecloth.^[5] The verb is dated to the late 18th century by the Shorter Oxford, mainly as the participle gauzed,^[6] and to 1876 by the OED.^[2] Elizabeth Bowen's "Midges gauzed the air" is quoted by both the Shorter Oxford and Merriam-Webster.^[6][5]

Timeline

• 1561 – a thin, transparent fabric, as gais.^[2][4]
• 1688 – the spelling gawse.^[4]
• 1774 – the adjective gauzy.^[4]
• 1842 – a similar fabric of fine wire.^[2]
• 1842 – a thin transparent haze, in Tennyson.^[2]
• 1876 – verb, to cover with or as with gauze, or with a thin mist.^[2] The Shorter Oxford dates the verb to the late 18th century.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A thin, loosely woven, often transparent fabric, used for clothing or curtains.^[10][5][2]
2. A loosely woven cotton material used for surgical dressings.^[10][5][6]
3. A fine mesh of wire or other material, also called wire gauze.^[10][5][2]
4. A thin mist or haze: a thin gauze of mist over the lake.^[10][5][2]

Verb

1. (chiefly British) To cover with gauze, or give something a gauzy look.^[5][6][2]

Word family

• gauzily
• gauziness
• gauzelike
• gauzy
• wire gauze

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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
14. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.