chemise

Note: The word chemise occurs once in Middle English, presumably borrowed from Anglo-French, but as a designation for a woman's garment it does not occur after that until the eighteenth century, when it was reborrowed from French. Late Latin camīsia was taken directly into Old English as cemes "shirt, undergarment," continued in Middle English as kemes, kemse, but not surviving any later. The kind of garment designated by camīsia, a sort of close-fitting shirt worn by men, was apparently not familiar to the Romans, so Latin had no name for it; the tunica "tunic," usually at least knee-length and belted, was evidently not the same. The earliest attestation of camīsia, in a letter of jerome (Epistolae 64.11), describes it as having "close-fitting sleeves" ("strictis manicis") descending to the legs ("… usque ad crura descendat"); camīsia was the vernacular name for such a garment, worn by soldiers ("… solent militares habere lineas, quas camisias vocant" - "soldiers customarily possess linen garments, which they call camisiae"). The etymology given above is often accepted, but it is not without obscurities. The reflection of Germanic initial h as c in camīsia is peculiar, as is the long i, attested as short in outcomes of the etymon only in easternmost Romance (Romanian, Dalmatian, dialects of northeast Italy). British Celtic languages have what appears to be an early loan from Old English hemeþe, though with a sibilant that is perhaps owed to the Latin word: Welsh hefys, hefis "woman's undergarment" (ca. 1400 heuis), Old Cornish heuis (glossing colobium "sleeveless tunic"), Old Breton hemis (in guest-hemisiou, glossing lāticlāvia "tunic with a broad purple stripe"). The Germanic etymon has been further compared with Sanskrit śāmulya- "garment," though given the lack of other evidence this connection is questionable.