Hats
This week is an etymological tip
of the hat to headwear.
Hat comes from the Old English word haet, head covering, which came from a Proto Indo-European word meaning cover or protect.
Cap is also came from Old English. It started as caeppe, a hood covering or cape. This word came
from the Latin word caput, head.
In English it only referred to
women’s head coverings until the late 1300s, & is, not surprisingly,
related to the French word chapeau.
Though most modern Americans
associate the fedora with noirish characters of the 1930s, the term initially
referred to a hat worn by a woman – Sarah Bernhardt -- who in 1882 at the time
of her fascination with soft-brimmed, center-creased hats, was playing the part
of a Russian princess in a Victorien Sardou play, Fedora. Bernhardt’s
fashion choice inspired a rash of fedora-wearing women’s rights activists. Some years later, those 1930s nourish hoods liked the look, too.
Though the derby was being
manufactured in the US as early as 1850, it didn’t earn its name until twenty
years later, when that particular style caught on across the pond at the Derby
horse races.
Sombrero entered English in 1770 from Spanish sombrero, a broad-brimmed hat. It heralds from sombra,
or shade, & initially described a parasol
or umbrella.
Beret entered English in 1827, from the French word béret. Before landing in
the French language, beret travelled through Bearn, Old Gascon, Late Latin, &
Middle Latin. Its Middle Latin form is the diminutive form of birrus,
a large, hooded cape. It appears the
word may have entered Middle Latin from Gaulish.
Etymologists don’t agree on the
beginnings of the bowler. Some claim it was named after J. Bowler, a popular London
hat maker of the 1800s. Others trace it back to the Old English grandmother of bowl,
heafodbolla, meaning brainpan or skull. Those Old English
folks really had a way with syllables, didn’t they?
Dear followers, did any hat word
histories surprise you or cause a wrinkled brow? Please leave your thoughts in
the comments section.
So the beret has always been French? I remember him well: Old Gascon,in his beret, as he bicycled through the Gaulish streets... And a sombrero is a parasol for your head. Makes sense. More than that old grandmother's skull-bowl. :-) Sounds a bit ghoulish.
ReplyDeleteHi Anne,
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on the skull-bowl. Sounds as though these folks had a more intimate knowledge of such things than I care to have.