Scyrte

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A short loose garment worn on the upper body, the sort of tunic or shirt used in early English times
2. An old English word for a short tunic or outer garment worn over the body, typically by men
3. A brief covering for the torso, resembling a tunic or shirt, that was common in the Anglo-Saxon period

Etymology: Old English "scyrte" named a short tunic, the kind worn by men and sometimes women, and it is the direct ancestor of modern English "shirt." The word was recorded in Old English texts and passed into Middle English as "shirte," where it kept the sense of a garment worn next to the skin under outer clothing. Its Germanic roots are shared with other languages, such as Old Norse "skyrta" and Old High German "scurz," which points to a garment name common to the early Germanic peoples. The meaning narrowed over the centuries. In Old and Middle English, a shirt was a basic piece of clothing that could be worn by anyone, and the word was not limited to one gender or one social class. Only later did the term settle into the modern sense of a garment with a collar, sleeves and buttons for the upper body, while the older, looser idea survived in phrases like "nightshirt" and "shirt-tail."