Learn English – Different Meanings of ‘Jumper’ (Transatlantic embarassment)

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I'm originally from Wales, now living in the USA, and as the cold weather is approaching I'm determined, this year, to start using the word sweater to describe the item of clothing I'm wearing, as opposed to that which comes much more naturally to me: jumper. It'll save a lot of laughter at my expense if I can manage that.

In the USA, a jumper is a shoulder-to-thigh girl's dress, whereas in the UK a jumper is a knitted garment worn over a shirt or tee by either sex. This question has more detailed descriptions.

My question is, how did these meanings for 'jumper' evolve so differently? Was there a point when they both referred to the same garment, or do they have two completely separate histories?

Best Answer

While the because-they-can-be-jumped-into theory put forward by the WP entry for "jumper dress" is very believable, there are a couple of other sources on the net which do not subscribe to it. Firstly, etymonline's entry for jumper reads thusly:

The word meaning "sleeveless dress" (1853) apparently is from mid-17c. jump "short coat," also "woman's under bodice," of uncertain origin, perhaps from Fr. jupe "skirt" (see jupe). Meaning "sleeveless dress worn over a blouse" first recorded American English 1939.

The linked entry for jupe reads as below:

late 13c., "men's loose jacket," from O.Fr. jupe, from Arabic jubbah "loose outer garment. As a woman's bodice, from 1810.

World Wide Words sheds a little light to this odd evolution:

Jumper seems to have appeared about the middle of the nineteenth century, originally for what the Oxford English Dictionary describes as “A kind of loose outer jacket or shirt reaching to the hips”, in other words what I would call a fisherman’s smock. The origin has nothing to do with the verb to jump, but comes from the dialect jump or jup, meaning a man’s short coat or a woman’s under-bodice or tunic. This may derive in turn from the French juppe, a petticoat (now in modern French, jupe, “skirt”), which ultimately derived from the Arabic jubba, a loose outer garment.

The word has evolved differently in Britain and the US; British usage has moved towards a garment that is specifically woollen, the US towards any upper-body garment for women.

This topic has also been covered on word-detective.com albeit with less clarity.

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