robe

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English robe,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French robe, also robbe and roube,^[4][5][6][7] a narrowed use of Old French robe, "booty, spoils of war", in Anglo-Norman especially clothing taken as booty.^[4][8] The word probably came ultimately from the Germanic base of Old High German rouba (“booty, spoils, looted clothing”),^[4][5][6] Proto-Germanic *raubō (“booty”),^[5][6] the base also of rob, reave and bereave,^[5][9][10] and is cognate with Old English rēaf (“plunder; garment, armour”).^[5][2][11] Ayto and the Shorter Oxford trace the French word through Vulgar Latin *rauba.^[9][12][7] The semantic step from booty to clothes appears earlier in Medieval Latin rauba, booty from the 7th century, clothes taken from an enemy from the 8th, and simply clothes or a garment from the 12th.^[4] The American Heritage Dictionary puts the word under the root Proto-Indo-European *reup-.^[3] The same Germanic word gave rauba, roba (“goods, stuff”) and ropa (“clothes”).^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

A long, loose outer garment reaching to the ankles; a gown: about 1225, in the Worcester glosses to Old English homilies.^[4] Barnhart dates the word probably about 1200,^[6] and Etymonline to the late 13th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Etymologically a robe is "something stolen": fine clothes taken from an enemy were the typical booty, and the French word kept both senses.^[9][5][10] In the Old French sense of spoils it also gave English rubbish and rubble.^[9] From about 1300 a robe was the garment that marked a person's rank, office or profession,^[4][5] hence the robe for the legal profession, recorded by Etymonline from the 1640s.^[5][4] In North America from 1761 a robe was a dressed animal skin used as a garment or blanket, as in a buffalo robe.^[4] The sense "dressing gown" is first recorded in 1812 in the OED and in 1854 in Etymonline, and is now chiefly North American;^[4][5] Etymonline notes that such senses often appear first in French, as in robe de chambre.^[5] The verb, to dress in a robe, is from about 1378 in Barnhart and before 1400 in the OED.^[6][4] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as a gown of state, a dress of dignity.^[14] Weekley notes that in English it usually suggests rich dress or a person's station.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – a long, loose outer garment.^[4]
• c. 1300 – a garment marking rank or office.^[4][5]
• c. 1330 – in the plural, outer clothes in general.^[4]
• c. 1378 – verb, to clothe in a robe.^[6]
• 1640s – the robe, the legal profession.^[5]
• 1761 – a dressed animal skin used as a covering (North America).^[4]
• 1812 – a dressing gown.^[4]
• 1926 – robe, short for wardrobe.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A long, loose outer garment; a gown.^[16][2][4]
2. Such a garment worn as a sign of office or rank, as by a judge, peer or academic: The mayor wore her robes of office.^[16][2][4]
3. A dressing gown or bathrobe.^[16][2][4]
4. (North America) A dressed animal skin used as a covering or blanket.^[2][4]
5. (Australia, informal) A wardrobe.^[16][4]

Verb

1. To dress someone, or oneself, in a robe: The priest robed before the service.^[16][2][4]
2. To cover as if with a robe: hills robed in snow.^[2][4]

Word family

• robeless
• rober
• disrobe
• enrobe
• underrobe
• unrobe
• bathrobe
• buffalo robe

Related words

• rob
• reave
• bereave
• rubbish
• rubble
• wardrobe

Usage notes

Robe in the sense of a wardrobe, recorded from 1926 and informal in Australian English, is a separate word, a shortening of wardrobe.^[4][12][16]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins