A sleeveless garment similar to an apron, worn especially by small girls as a dress or an overdress.
[PIN + AFORE (so called because formerly pinned to the front of the dress).]
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The noun has one meaning:
Meaning #1:
a sleeveless dress resembling an apron; worn over other clothing
Synonyms: jumper, pinny
A pinafore (colloquially pinny in British English) is a sleeveless garment worn as an apron.
The pinafore was a type of apron that was pinned over the dress and easily removed for washing. Buttons were frequently damaged with lye cleaning products, which was one reason why dresses were not laundered very often. The pinafore had no buttons, was simply "pinned on the front" which led to the term "pinafore."
A related term is pinafore dress, which is British English for what in American English is known as a jumper dress, i.e. a sleeveless dress intended to be worn over a top or blouse. A key difference between a pinafore and a jumper dress is that the pinafore is open in the back. In informal British usage however, a pinafore dress is sometimes referred to as simply a pinafore, which can lead to confusion.
Pinafores may be worn by girls as a decorative garment and by both girls and women as a protective apron. The name reflects that the pinafore was formerly pinned (pin) to the front (afore) of a dress.
Pinafores are often confused with smocks. Some languages do not differentiate between these different garments. The pinafore differs from a smock in that it does not have sleeves and there is no back to the bodice. Smocks have both sleeves and a full bodice, both front and back.
A pinafore is a full apron with two holes for the arms that is tied or buttoned in the back, usually below the neck. Pinafores have complete front shaped over shoulder while aprons usually have no or smaller bibs. A child's garment to wear at school or for play would be a pinafore.
Further confusion results from foreign languages, which, unlike English, do not have a distinctive term for the pinafore. In German, for example, there is no precise term for pinafore. Schürze means "apron" and thus "Kinderschürze" is used to describe a child's apron or pinafore.
H.M.S. Pinafore, a comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan, uses the word in its title, creating a humorous portmanteau.
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Français (French)
n. - tablier, blouse
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Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - παιδική ποδιά, γυναικεία ποδιά
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Português (Portuguese)
n. - avental (m) para crianças
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Español (Spanish)
n. - delantal, babero
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Svenska (Swedish)
n. - förkläde
中文(简体) (Chinese (Simplified))
围嘴, 无袖连衫裙, 围兜, 围裙
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中文(繁體) (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 圍嘴, 無袖連衫裙, 圍兜, 圍裙
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日本語 (Japanese)
n. - エプロン, エプロンドレス
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العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) مئزر للأطفال
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Copyrights:
![]() | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Pinafore". Read more | |
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