blouse

1828, from French blouse (“a workman's or peasant's smock”), see that for more.

More at blee, fold.

• IPA^(key): /blaʊs/, /blaʊz/
• (obsolete) IPA^(key): /bluːz/[1]

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊs, -aʊz

blouse (plural blouses)

1. (fashion, obsolete) A shirt, typically loose and reaching from the neck to the waist.
2. (fashion) A shirt for women or girls, particularly a shirt with buttons and often a collar; a dress shirt tailored for women.
3. (military fashion) A loose-fitting uniform jacket.
4. (India, Bangladesh) A short garment worn under a sari.

• bodice (also used for undershirts)

• Watteau bodice

• → Bengali: ব্লাউজ (blauj)
• → Gujarati: બ્લાઉઝ (blāujha)
• → Hindi: ब्लाउज़ (blāuz)
• → Japanese: ブラウス (burausu), ブルーズ (burūzu)
• → Korean: 블라우스 (beullauseu)

blouse (third-person singular simple present blouses, present participle blousing, simple past and past participle bloused)

1. To hang a garment in loose folds.
2. (military) To tuck one's pants/trousers (into one's boots).
   • 1989, Bernard C. Nalty, Strength for the Fight: A History of Black Americans in the Military, page 311:

     An anonymous black soldier summed up his feelings by declaring, "If I fail to blouse my boots, or [if I] wear an Afro, I get socked. […] "

• (antonym(s) of “military”): unblouse

• deblouse
• unblouse

blouse (plural blouses)

1. Alternative form of blouze
2. Alternative form of blowess
3. Alternative form of blowze

• blousy

• Belous, Lobues, besoul, boules, obelus

• IPA^(key): /blus/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: blou‧se
• Rhymes: -us

blouse f (plural blouses, diminutive blouseje n)

1. Alternative spelling of bloes

• IPA^(key): /bluz/

• audio

  (file)

1788, of obscure origin. Three hypotheses are:

• French blousse (“scraps of wool”), from Occitan lano blouso (“pure or short wool”), from blous, blos (“pure, empty, bare”), from Old High German blōz (“naked, bare”) (German bloß (“bare”))
• A conflation of the aforementioned and French bliaud, bliaut (a kind of smock or robe, whence English bliaus, bliaut), from Old French bliau, also from Frankish *blīfald (“topcoat of scarlet colour”), from *blīu (“coloured, bright”) + *fald (“crease, fold”). More at English blee, fold, and bliaut.
• From Medieval Latin pelusia, from Pelusium, a city of Upper Egypt, a clothing manufacturer during the Middle Ages.

blouse f (plural blouses)

1. uniform or coat with buttons down the front

   blouse d’hôpital ― hospital gown

• blouses blanches

• blousard
• blouson

belouse is earlier. The word appears already in the early 17^th century and its origin is unknown.

• belouse, belouzes

blouse f (plural blouses)

1. (archaic) any one of the holes on a billiards table

• → German: Blouse, Bluse
• → Russian: лу́за (lúza)

blouse

1. inflection of blouser:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

• “blouse”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• boules

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

blouse f (plural blouses)

1. (Jersey) smock

• c'mînsole dé molleton