Linger over lingerie lingo
Thinking of giving a loved one a gift of lingerie for Valentine’s Day? If so, make sure it is made from linen, unless you want to make a linguistic faux pas.
That is because it comes from lin – linen (cloth from the flax plant) – and originally meant things made from it.
Like many English words for undergarments, the French term is used – probably because in days gone by referring to such unmentionables with a foreign word was less embarrassing… It has been used in English since Edwardian times.
In French the term lingerie was not exclusively feminine, but could refer to as shirt cuffs, white ties etc, however in modern French, like English, it is most associated with feminine underwear.
One well-known kind of lingerie, the bra, is another French-origin term, though brassière is little used in French today apart from for sports bras and a kind of baby’s vest. Curiously, it originally had nothing to do with breasts – it comes from ‘bras’ (arm), and the first use was a vest with sleeves, to protect the arms under armour. So, it was worn by macho medieval knights! Later it came to mean a simple kind of bra without cups – a kind of broad band around the chest.
The modern soutien-gorge (bra) dates from the start of the last century, and means ‘throat supporter’. Gorge is an old euphemism – 19th century novelist Flaubert referred to ‘what it is polite to call la gorge, that’s to say, everything between the chin and the belly button’.
French for a bra cup, is a bonnet. Depending on design, the garment may show off a décolleté pigeonnant (‘pigeoning cleavage’). Another item associated with French lingerie, is the garter – from jarretière, which were worn at the jarret, the hollow of the knee. Corset, meanwhile, means ‘little body’ (from le corps), while a negligee comes from French for ‘neglected’, implying not properly dressed – in French it is commonly called un déshabillé, literally ‘an undressed’ (Larousse says un négligé is ‘literary’).
