DCHP-1 Online

matchcoat † < Algonk.; cf. Ojibwa manchikōten skirt Obs.

• n. See 1907 quote.

  • First recorded in John Smith, Works, 1607-9, as matchcore, apparently from Powhatan, an Algonkian language of E. Virginia, with reference to a short fur mantle, this word evolved by folk etymology into matchcoat, which is cited by the Dictionary of Americanisms from 1638. The term appears to have been applied to various garments of several materials from place to place, the early Canadian references being to a kind of woman's petticoat worn among the Ojibwas.

  • 1768-82  (1904)  A hut was prepared, and the girl stripped to her matchee-coaty or under petticoat....
  • 1907  During the era of trade with the Indians almost throughout the Algonquian seaboard certain garments supplied in traffic were called by the English "matchcoats," a corruption of a name belonging to one of the cloaks or mantles of the natives. The Algonquian word from which it was derived is represented by the Chippewa matchigoté, Delaware wachgotey, "petticoat."
  • 1929  (1832)  Each of these females in addition to the machecoti or petticoat, which in one solid square of broadcloth was tightly wrapped around the loins, also carried a blanket. . . .