poncho

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish poncho, in its American Spanish use;^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} the first English quotation (1717) translates a French passage of 1716 that uses French poncho for the Spanish word.^[2] In Spanish the word is older than the sense of a cloak with a slit for the head, which dates from the 18th century: earlier it denoted a woven woollen garment worn by men for warmth, like a cape or blanket (by 1608, of Peru), and a cloak of otter skins worn by the people near the River Paraná (1530).^[2][7] Its further origin is disputed.^[2] Many dictionaries derive it from Mapudungun pontho (“woollen fabric”),^[8][3][9][7] which Collins spells pantho,^[10] and Hoad, Klein, Partridge and the Oxford Dictionary of English give Araucanian as its source.^{[5][6][11][12]} The OED thinks this unlikely, because the Spanish word is recorded early and in a context relating to an entirely different region, and notes that the Mapuche word for a poncho in current dictionaries is macuñ.^[2] Corominas, on the same grounds of date, proposed instead the Spanish adjective poncho, lazy or slovenly, as a variant of pocho (“discoloured, faded”), since the garment was a blanket without bright colours or patterns;^[7][9][2] the OED objects that both adjectives are recorded much later than the noun.^[2] The American Heritage Dictionary takes it as perhaps a back-formation from ponchón (“lazy, sluggish, slack”), perhaps an alteration of an augmentative of pocho, ultimately imitative,^[13] and Etymonline allows that the Spanish adjective influenced the word.^[8] Wiktionary traces it instead to Quechua punchu.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A South American cloak made of an oblong piece of thick woollen cloth with a slit in the middle for the head: 1717, in the English translation of A. F. Frézier's Voyage to the South-Sea.^[2] Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster give the same year.^[7][8][3]

Semantic evolution

The word was later used more widely of any garment made in this style.^[2][4] A waterproof poncho of India rubber is recorded from 1845, and Wiktionary notes that such ponchos were popularized in the United States in the 1850s by expeditions to the West and by the army.^[1] Merriam-Webster records the waterproof garment, of rubber, waterproofed cloth or plastic, worn chiefly as a raincoat.^[3]

Timeline

• 1717 – a South American cloak with a slit in the middle for the head.^[2][3][7]
• 1845 – a waterproof garment of India rubber in this style.^[1]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cloak made of a single piece of cloth, especially wool, like a blanket with a slit in the middle for the head, originally worn in South America.^{[10][3][2][4]}
2. A similar waterproof garment of rubber, plastic or treated cloth, worn as a raincoat.^[3][1]

Word family

• ponchoed

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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 g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt