Whilst the ten words listed here are all derived from the names of specific garments, more general references to clothing in the English language can be found in a vast number of phrases and idiomatic expressions. To wear the trousers or to wear the pants, for instance, has been used since the nineteenth century to imply that someone is the more dominant member of a household or relationship. To be caught with your trousers down, in an embarrassing or compromising situation, dates from the 1920s, as does the expression not in these trousers!, meaning ‘no chance!’, whilst to fly by the seat of your pants is a 1930s phrase originally used in reference to pilots who were able to monitor or guide an aeroplane by feeling its movement through their legs. Amongst the earliest of all such expressions, however, are those that use the word shirt as a metaphor for all of a person’s belongings – to not have a shirt, meaning to ‘have absolutely nothing’, is found in Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales as far back as the fourteenth century.
Historically, berserks or berserkers were wild Scandinavian warriors known for their considerable strength and ferociousness. First mentioned in English in the early nineteenth century (in a collection of traditional Scandinavian sagas partly compiled by Sir Walter Scott), the word berserker is thought to mean literally ‘bear-shirt’ or ‘bearskin coat’, derived from an Old Norse word serkr, meaning ‘shirt’ or ‘pelt’. Shortened to berserk in the mid-nineteenth century and first used as an adjective meaning ‘frenzied’ or ‘out of control’ in the 1850s, the word eventually began to appear in the familiar phrase go berserk, meaning ‘go wild’, in the 1910s.
It is fairly well known that the word cappuccino is thought to derive from the name of the sixteenth-century Capuchin friars of Italy, whose robes were said to be of a similar colour to the coffee. The Capuchins themselves, however, take their name from cappuccio, the Italian name for the sharp-pointed hood or cowl they wear as part of their robes, which is descended from the same root as the English word cap. Likewise, capuchin monkeys native to South America are so named as their dark-coloured heads are said to resemble the monks’ cowls.
In the sense of an accompanying guardian or protector, the word chaperon was first recorded in English in the early 1700s. Before this, it had been used since the early fourteenth century as the name of a type of hood or cap partly covering the face, and is derived directly from the identical French words for ‘hood’, chaperon, and ‘cape’, chape. The connection between this original meaning and the more contemporary one is debatable, but it could simply be a figurative reference to the fact that a chaperon protects the person in their care in much the same way as a hood gives protection from the rain.
A cotillion is an intricate ballroom dance, similar to a quadrille, in which four or more couples dance in squares. Originating in France in the eighteenth century, the dance takes its name from the French word for a petticoat, cotillon, which is itself a diminutive of the earlier French word cote or cotte, meaning ‘coat’. In British English, the word is rarely encountered outside historical contexts today, but it has survived in American English as another word for a formal ball or prom dance, in which sense it was first used in the late 1800s.
Adopted into English from the old French verb desmanteller, the word dismantle dates from the late sixteenth century when it was originally used in military or defensive contexts to refer to the destruction of a fortress or similar structure, rendering it useless. The word itself, however, literally means ‘remove a cloak’, and is derived from the same root as mantle, an old-fashioned English word for a cape or loose sleeveless robe, which has been recorded as far back as the ninth century.
At its very earliest, the word hackle is found as hacele in the early Old English period in reference to a type of cloak or similar outer garment. Over time, use of the word broadened so as to refer more generally to any protective covering or casing, and it gained a number of different senses referring to the plumage of a bird (1400s), the shed skin of a serpent (c.1500s), the straw roof of a beehive (1600s) and the topmost straw of a haystack or hayrick (1600s). Raise your hackles or put your hackles up, meaning ‘angered’ or ‘enraged’, both date from the late nineteenth century and derive from the use of the word to refer to the long quills or plumes found on the back of a cockerel’s neck, which are typically raised up when the bird is angered or attacked.
The word lap is one of the oldest traceable words in the entire English language and has been recorded in documents dating back as far as the ninth century. Remarkably, the use of the word to describe the level space formed between the waist and the knees when sitting did not appear in English until the late thirteenth century, almost 400 years later. Before this, lap was used to refer to a fold or flap in a garment, and in particular one which could be held up or folded over so as to form a pouch, like the skirt of a coat or the part of a robe or shirt that covers the chest. Subsequently, the word came to be used for any pocket or pouch-like appendage (it is even recorded as another name for the earlobe in an eleventh-century text), and ultimately the modern sense of the word is thought to have developed from the use of the lap to hold or cradle something in much the same way as a pouch.
Found in deep tropical seas around the world, the giant manta or ‘devilfish’ is the largest species of ray in the world, typically growing to more than 7 m (23 ft) across. The name manta is of Spanish origin and literally means ‘blanket’, but is ultimately derived from the Latin word for a cloak or cape, mantum. In English, the word was first recorded in the mid-1700s in A Voyage to South America, an English translation of the travel journals of the Spanish explorer and astronomer Antonio de Ulloa, who aptly explains that ‘The name manta, has not been improperly given to this fish . . . for being broad and long like a quilt, it wraps its fins round a man or any other animal . . . and immediately squeezes it to death’. Although Ulloa’s description of the creature’s appearance is accurate, his portrayal of its apparently ferocious hunting method is mistaken, as mantas are in fact filter feeders that only consume plankton and tiny fish larvae. Despite being closely related to sharks, they pose no threat to humans.
Meaning ‘cheap’ or ‘gaudy’, tawdry was first used in English in the late 1600s, but the word itself dates from the first half of the seventeenth century when it was used as the name of a type of lady’s necktie, typically made from so-called tawdry lace. The word is formed from a contraction of the name of ‘St Audrey’, a seventh-century Suffolk-born Queen of Northumbria and a former abbess of Ely in Cambridgeshire, where for many years an annual fair was held in her honour. According to local lore, St Audrey died of a tumour to her throat in 679 (a condition which she considered divine retribution for her fondness for showy necklaces in her youth) and so after her death lace neckties and bands were sold at Ely in her memory. When these ties became increasingly popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth century many poor-quality imitations were produced, which ultimately lent the word tawdry the meaning it still bears today.
A popular spring-flowering plant of the lily family, the tulip was first recorded in English in the late sixteenth century. Presumably adopted into the language from one of several possible continental sources – including the French tulipe or the Dutch tulpe – the word tulip is ultimately derived via Turkish from the Persian word for a turban, dulband, which the plant’s somewhat bulbous and colourful flower-heads are said to resemble.