The negligee is one of fashion's great etymological paradoxes: a garment whose name means neglected but whose modern purpose is anything but careless. French négligée is the feminine past participle of négliger (to neglect), from Latin neglegere (to disregard, pay no attention to), compounded from nec (not) and legere (to pick up, choose). A négligée was, literally, an outfit assembled without care — clothing put on when one couldn't be bothered to dress properly.
In 18th-century France, the original context of the word was aristocratic morning routine. A woman en négligé was dressed informally for the hours before the elaborate formal toilette of the day. The négligée was casual domestic wear — a loose wrapper or dressing gown worn for breakfast, correspondence, and receiving intimate friends in one's private apartments. There was nothing deliberately
The transformation from casual morning wear to deliberately seductive garment occurred over the 19th and 20th centuries. As formal dressing standards relaxed and the private sphere became more important to fashion, the negligee evolved toward lighter, sheerer, more decorative forms. By the mid-20th century, the negligee — now typically made of silk, chiffon, or lace — had become one of the most intentionally alluring garments in the female wardrobe, its association with the bedroom fully established.
The etymological irony is delicious. What was originally the garment of not caring has become the garment of maximum calculated effect. The name preserves the pretense of casualness — I just threw this on — while the reality is anything but neglected.
The Latin legere (to pick up, choose, gather) that forms the second element of neglegere has been extraordinarily productive. From it descend elect (to choose out), select (to choose apart), collect (to gather together), lecture (a reading), legend (something to be read), and intelligent (choosing between — discerning). Negligence, negligee, and neglect all represent the negative form: not choosing, not paying attention, not making the effort.