Pilche

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A dialect word for a loose outer garment, traditionally made of flannel for swaddling infants or of leather for breeches
2. An old regional term for a wrap of thick flannel or a leather covering worn over other clothing
3. A traditional name for a heavy flannel or leather garment, used in some rural English and Scottish speech

Etymology: Before it named a garment at all, the root behind this word meant simply "skin" or "hide," from the Latin "pellis." Latin speakers made "pellicea," meaning something made of hide, and this passed into Old English as "pylece," a coat of animal skin or fur. Over the Middle English period the form shrank to "pilche," a fur-lined outer garment worn by people who could afford warmth. The word then drifted downward in social class and in shape. In later dialect use it came to mean a rough outer wrap for infants, a covering laid over a baby's clothing, and the Scots-leaning sense of a leather or woollen cover became its last common role. The Latin "pellis" also gave English "pelt," which shows the same skin-based root working its way into a very different word.