shawl

Etymology

It is borrowed from Persian شال (šāl),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} which reached English through Urdu شال (šāl) and other languages of India.^[3][2][7][8] Klein, Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English take the Persian word as probably named after Shāliāt, a town in India where the cloth was first made;^{[9][10][7][11]} the American Heritage Dictionary instead traces it ultimately to Sanskrit शाटी (śāṭī, “cloth, sari”).^[12] From Persian through the Indian languages the word spread to the other European languages: French châle (1666, borrowed directly from Persian according to Barnhart), Spanish chal, Italian scialle and Dutch sjaal, while German and Danish took it from English.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

An Asian garment, an oblong piece of cloth worn as a scarf, turban or girdle: 1662, in J. Davies's translation of Olearius's Voyages and Travels.^[2][3] Hoad describes the original article as made in Kashmir from the hair of a Tibetan goat, and gives the early spellings (s)chal, scial and shaul.^[10]

Semantic evolution

For a century the word named only an Eastern garment, worn round the shoulders or waist or as a turban.^[2][8] Shawls began to be worn in the West in the mid-18th century,^[8] and the first record of the word for a Western garment, a covering for the shoulders or head worn chiefly by women, is in a letter of Laurence Sterne in 1767.^[3][2] From 1834 it was also a wrap worn round the neck against the cold.^[2] The verb, to wrap in a shawl, follows in 1812, in Maria Edgeworth's The Absentee.^[2][5] In Irish slang a shawl was a prostitute, after the shawls worn by poor women: James Joyce used it in Ulysses (1922).^[2][13][4]

Timeline

• 1662 – an Asian garment worn as a scarf, turban or girdle.^[2][3][5]
• 1767 – a Western woman's covering for the shoulders or head.^[2][3]
• 1812 – verb, to cover with a shawl.^[2][5]
• 1834 – a wrap worn round the neck against the cold.^[2]
• 1922 – Irish slang, a prostitute.^[2][13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A piece of fabric, or of knitted or crocheted material, worn over the shoulders or head, chiefly by women, or wrapped around a baby: She pulled her woollen shawl tighter against the wind.^[6][5][4]
2. (Irish slang) A prostitute.^[2][4][13]

Verb

1. To wrap or cover in a shawl, or as if in one.^[5][2]

Word family

• shawlless
• shawl collar
• prayer shawl

Related words

• sari

References

1. ^ 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 e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University 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 Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com