jean
Pluraljeans
- 1A sturdy twilled cotton fabric used for hard-wearing garments; denim.
The factory cut its overalls from heavy jean woven at the local mill.
Sailors once favored coarse jean for its resistance to wear and weather.
Similardenim
Note
A cloth named for a city: Middle English Gene meant Genoa, where a blue dye, bleu de Gênes, colored the denim woven in Nîmes, which makes the word a doublet of Genoa and Geneva. Today it mostly stands before another noun, as in a jean jacket, though Dickens could still dress a character in a frock of coarse dark jean in 1843. The plural, jeans, names the garment.
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Origin
It comes from Middle English Gene ("Genoa"), from Old French Jannes. A blue dye made in Genoa, called Bleu de Gênes ("Genovese blue"), was used to tint denim cloth. It is a doublet of Genoa and Geneva and distantly related to knee.