A gaberdine or gabardine is a long, loose gown or cloak with wide sleeves , worn by men in the later Middle Ages and into the 16th century. ^[1]

In The Merchant of Venice , William Shakespeare uses the phrase "Jewish gaberdine" to describe the garment worn by Shylock , and the term gaberdine has been subsequently used to refer to the overgown or mantle worn by Jews in the medieval era. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

History and etymology [ edit ]

In the 15th and early 16th centuries, gaberdine (variously spelled gawbardyne, gawberdyne, gabarden, gaberdin, gabberdine ) signified a fashionable overgarment, but by the 1560s it was associated with coarse garments worn by the poor. ^{[1] [2]} In the 1611 A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues , Randle Cotgrave glossed the French term gaban as "a cloake of Felt for raynie weather; a Gabardine" ^[4] Thomas Blount 's Glossographia of 1656 defined a gaberdine as "A rough Irish mantle or horseman's cloak, a long cassock". Aphra Behn uses the term for 'Holy Dress', or 'Friers Habits' in Abdelazer (1676), Act 2; this in a Spanish setting.

In later centuries gaberdine was used colloquially for any protective overgarment, including labourers' smock-frocks and children's pinafores . ^{[2] [5]} It is this sense that led Thomas Burberry to apply the name gabardine to the waterproofed twill fabric he developed in 1879. ^[6]

The word comes from Spanish gabardina , Old French gauvardine, galvardine, gallevardine , possibly from the German term Wallfahrt signifying a pilgrimage ^[2] or from kaftan .

Notes [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

Look up gabardine in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Cumming, Valerie, C. W. Cunnington and P. E. Cunnington. The Dictionary of Fashion History , Berg, 2010, ISBN   978-1-84788-533-3
• Oxford English Dictionary Online, "Gaberdine" (subscription required)
• Picken, Mary Brooks : The Fashion Dictionary , Funk & Wagnalls, 1957. (1973 edition ISBN   0-308-10052-2 )