Parka

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈpɑɹkə/

Definitions

1. A warm, often fur-lined coat with a hood that provides insulation and protection from frigid temperatures in cold environments
2. A heavy outer garment with a hood, designed for warmth and comfort in harsh winter conditions while offering protection against the elements
3. A thick, insulated outerwear piece featuring a hood that is designed to keep the wearer warm and protected in extremely cold weather conditions

Etymology: The garment's name travelled a long way before it reached English. It comes from Tundra Nenets, a Samoyedic language of northern Siberia, where "parka" referred to a coat, and it reached English around 1780 through the Aleut language of the Aleutian Islands, which had borrowed it from Nenets speakers and passed it on to Russian traders and explorers. Russian then had its own form, "párka", which was the route by which European speakers encountered the word. The Nenets word is itself possibly older than its Siberian home. Some scholars link it to a Finnish dialect word "parka", meaning rag or swaddling cloth, and suggest a shared root in Proto-Uralic, the ancestor of Finnish and the Siberian languages. Whether that connection is real, or whether the word was borrowed from a neighbouring Uralic language, remains uncertain.

Synonyms: jacket, coat, anorak, windbreaker, hooded coat