[a. mod.F. blouse (pron. bluz’) of obscure etymology: see Littré and Scheler.]
1. A light loose upper garment of linen or cotton, resembling a shirt or smock-frock; properly applied (as an alien term) to the well-known blue blouse of the French workman, but in England sometimes used loosely to designate more or less similar garments.
[1834. Planché, Brit. Costume, 89. A garment called bliant or bliaus, which appears to have been only another name for the surcoat or super-tunic…. In this bliaus we may discover the modern French blouse, a tunic or smock-frock.]
1840. Thackeray, Paris Sketch Bk. (1872), 6. Another has a shooting dress, a third has a blouse.
1875. J. Curtis, Hist. Eng., 153. The lower classes wore a blouse or kind of small frock, made of canvas or fustian.
1879. Hingston, Australian Abroad, ii. 11. The bodies of the general run of Japanese are covered with a blue blouse, tied with a sash around the waist.
2. transf. A French workman.
1865. G. F. Berkeley, My Life of Recoll., II. 281. No wealth of gold would tempt a blouse to risk a charge from an old boar at such close quarters.
1872. Lytton, Parisians, XI. xi. (1878), II. 223. De Mauléon came on a group of blouses.
3. Comb., as blouse-like adj., blouse panier.
1874. Boutell, Arms & Arm., 107. The body armour is … a long, narrow, blouse-like garment.
1883. Myra’s Jrnl., Aug. Narrow box-pleated blouse paniers.
