牛津词典：你应该知道的6个衣物冷僻词

1. denim

牛仔布

The hard-wearing cotton twill fabric, usually blue and often used for jeans, is pretty straightforward about its origins; denim comes from Nîmes, France. More fully, the fabric was known as ‘serge de Nîmes’, serge referring to a durable twilled woolen or worsted fabric.

这种耐磨的棉质斜纹布织物，通常是蓝色的，用来做牛仔裤，名字来源也够直截了当。牛仔布一词来自法国尼姆。说全面些，这种织物即所谓的“serge de Nîmes (尼姆粗缝毛边)”，serge指的是经久耐磨的斜纹布羊毛或是精纺织物。

　2. muslin

平纹细布

The name for this t"class="hjdict"word="lightweight"target=_blank>lightweight cotton cloth of a plain weave comes from the Italian word mussolina, which itself comes from Mussolo, or Mosul, the city in Iraq where this type of cloth was first manufactured.

这种轻质棉平纹布的名字来自意大利语mussolina， 其本身来自摩苏尔这一伊拉克城市，最初这种布料就是那里生产的。

3. tweed

粗花呢

The term tweed, referring to ‘a rough-surfaced woolen cloth, typically of mixed fleckedcolors’, emerged thanks to an accidental misreading. Although the circumstances are not clear, the term tweed seems to have come about from an accidental misreading of tweel, a Scots form of twill, or a misunderstanding of an abbreviated tweeled. The adoption of the term was probably helped by association with the River Tweed in the United Kingdom.

Tweed(粗花呢)这一术语指的是种“表面粗糙的羊毛布料，通常含各种星星点点的混色”。粗花呢的出现源于一次偶然的误读。尽管情况并不清晰明了，有说tweed这个术语是因为偶然间误读了tweel这个词(苏格兰语twill)， 也有一说是tweeled这个词的缩写为人们所误解。采用这个术语多少是因为和英国特威德河(River Tweed)联系在了一起。

4. tuxedo

燕尾服

This specific style of dinner jacket first appeared in the late 19th century, in the small village of Tuxedo Park, New York, located just outside New York City.

这一款式特别的晚礼服最初在19世纪晚期，就在纽约市外，纽约的塔克西多帕克的一个小村里出现。

5. balaclava

巴拉克拉法帽

The balaclava, a ‘woolen covering for the head and neck worn especially by soldiers on active service’, was named after the Crimean village of Balaclava near Sebastopol, the site of the Crimean War battle commonly known as the Battle of Balaclava.

巴拉克拉法帽是种“可以覆盖头部和颈部的羊毛织物，尤指服役军人戴的帽子”，名字取自克里米亚塞瓦斯托波尔附近一个名为巴拉克拉瓦的村庄——即克里米亚战争巴拉克拉瓦战役旧址。

6. cardigan

开襟羊毛衫

Clothing history gets crazy. History buffs and poetry fans may recognize the Battle of Balaclava as the setting for the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade, immortalized in poem form by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The man leading that charge was James Thomas Brudenell, the 7th Earl of Cardigan. You read that right: the same man who helped popularize cardigans, ‘a knitted sweater fastening down the front’, also led the Light Brigade in the Battle of Balaclava.

衣服的历史不免惊人。历史爱好者与诗歌迷也许能辨认出巴拉克拉瓦战役就是注定悲剧的《轻骑队之战歌》的故事背景，因丁尼生的诗歌而不朽。率领冲锋的是詹姆斯·托马斯·布鲁登诺尔，即卡迪根伯爵七世。你的解读没错，正是这同一个人既普及了开襟羊毛衫这种“前面系扣的针织毛衣”，也在巴拉克拉瓦战役中率领了轻骑队。