Etymologically
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robe

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ɹəʊb/[1]
  • US: /ɹoʊb/[1]

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

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