Bonnet — From Old French to English | etymologist.ai
bonnet
/ˈbɒnɪt/·noun·c. 1400, Middle English 'bonet' in sense of a soft cloth cap·Established
Origin
From Old French bonet (a type of fabric or softcap, c.13th century), borrowed into English c.1400 as men's headwear, then shifting to women's hats by the 18th century, and in British English now most commonly denoting a car's engine cover — the same word dressingheads and engines alike.
Definition
A soft hat without a brim, tied under the chin, traditionally worn by women and children; also (British English) the hinged metal hood covering a vehicle's engine.
The Full Story
Old French14th–15th centurywell-attested
The word 'bonnet' enters Middle English in the late 14th or early 15th century from Old French 'bonet' (also spelled 'bonnet'), which denoted a type of soft hat or headgear. The Old French form is attested from the 13th century onward. The dominant scholarly view traces it to Medieval Latin 'abonnis' or 'bonetus', referring to the material from which the hat was made — a kind of fabric used for headgear. The cloth gave its name to the hat style rather than the reverse. There is no secure Indo-European root; 'bonnet' is a loan of opaque or possibly
Did you know?
The bonnet started out as a fabric, not a hat. In early medieval French, 'bonet' named the woven textile itself — and the cap only acquired the name later, because it was made from that cloth. This means 'bonnet' originally meant something like 'a bonnet-cloth thing', the garment inheriting the material's name. The same word then leapt from women's fashionable headwear to a car enginecover in the 20th century — which means when a British mechanic lifts the bonnet, they're using a word whose first meaning was a
, and was used for men's and women's headgear until the 17th century, when it began to shift toward female usage specifically. By the 18th century in British English, 'bonnet' referred primarily to a woman's outdoor hat tied under the chin. In Scottish English, 'bonnet' retained the older sense of a man's flat or soft cap, a usage still current in dialect. In the 20th century, in British automotive English, 'bonnet' acquired the meaning of the hinged metal cover over a car's engine — a semantic extension by analogy of shape. Major cognates in French remain 'bonnet', still meaning a knitted or soft hat. Key roots: bonetus (Medieval Latin: "a type of fabric used to make soft caps; by extension, the cap itself"), bonet (Old French: "bonnet-cloth, a specific woven textile used in caps and headgear").