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blouse

UK/ˈblaʊ̯z/US/ˈblaʊ̯s/
nounA2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #3,546 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: blouses

A blouse is a woman's light shirt. A silk blouse, a white blouse, iron the blouse.

It buttons the other way from a man's shirt, and nobody is certain why — the likeliest explanation is that wealthy women were dressed by servants facing them. The word came from French, where it named a workman's loose smock, and it moved up the social scale after that.

Jamie · CC BY-SA 2.0

Definitions of blouse

  1. 1nounblouseA woman's light shirt.A2+

    “She wore a white silk blouse with dark trousers.”

blouse is a garment.

Where it comes from

French blouse named a workman's or peasant's smock. The word entered English in 1828 and rose in status.

  1. French

    blouse — a workman's or peasant's smock

  2. English, today

    blouse

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

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Clothes & Fashion

Practise this word

blouse in the wild

  • The kira is usually worn with a wonju (long-sleeved blouse) inside and a short jacket or toego outside.

    Kira (Bhutan)

  • A blouson or blouse jacket is a jacket that is drawn tight at the waist, causing it to blouse out and hang over the waistband.

    Blouson

  • The Northern and the Northeastern women may wear a sin instead of a pha nung and a chong kraben with either a blouse or a suea pat.

    Traditional Thai clothing

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.