Eton collar
- noun
- /ˈiːtən ˈkɒlər/
- Archaic
:
collar Eton
- The old photographs showed boys in straw hats and white shirts, all proudly sporting their distinctive Eton collars.
Examples
-
At the formal event, he wore a sharp suit complemented by an elegant Eton collar that highlighted his polished style.
-
Dressed in an Eton collar and black coat, Chandler joined Dulwich College as a day boy in September 1900, the penultimate year of Queen Victoria's sixty-four-year reign, at the age of twelve.
Fiction book (1999) -
During the assembly, many students stood out in their crisp uniforms, especially those with the traditional Eton collars neatly placed over their jackets.
Synonyms
121
1.0
A band of material around the neck of a shirt, coat, dress, or shoe
How Formal
Surface Forms
Morphology
A B1 learner who knows 'Eton' (a well-known boarding school) and 'collar' can reasonably infer this is a type or style of collar associated with Eton students. However, the precise historical shape and styling (broad, stiff, lying flat over lapels) are culturally specific and not fully predictable from the constituents alone, so full meaning requires extra exposure.
Etymology
Eton collar comes from Eton College, where boys wore a broad, stiff white collar that lay flat over the jacket. That clear picture of a wide white collar on a 'school' 'uniform' is why Eton collar today means that flat, formal collar and often suggests an old-fashioned school style.