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Glite Dictionary
middy blouse

middy blouse

7.7
A woman's or girl's top with a sailor-style collar like a sailor's uniform
  • noun
  • Archaic
translation icon : blusa de marinero
  • In the fashion show, several models showcased middy blouses adorned with various nautical-themed accessories.
  • a white middy blouse

Examples

  • When you finish The hems, We'll begin work On the middy blouse.

    Hold Your Man (1933)

  • I jumped up, took a shower, and put on my middy-blouse outfit and some of Mama's Tabu dusting powder.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • After chapel that Sunday, Mattie changed from her white middy blouse and skirt into the everyday uniform and went to Glacier Rock.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • The young girl wore a navy blue middy blouse with a crisp white collar to the school event.

  • Her favorite outfit included a stylish middy blouse paired with a matching skirt.

Synonyms

middy
vsmiddy blouse
  • Archaic
1 9.8

A blouse for women or girls with a sailor collar

uses the longer descriptive phrase rather than the short familiar term

Surface Forms

middy blouse singular
middy blouses plural

Morphology

middy + blouse

The meaning is directly compositional: 'middy' denotes a sailor-collared style and 'blouse' denotes a women's upper garment, so a 'middy blouse' is simply a blouse in the middy (sailor-collar) style. This is a straightforward naming pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would be able to derive the meaning.

Etymology

Middy blouse comes from sailor clothing. The word 'middy' was short for 'midshipman', a young sailor, and the blouse copied the sailor's wide collar, so the name came to mean a girl's top that looks like a sailor's uniform.