Pellucid

Pellucid (pronounced puh-loo-sid)

(1) Allowing the maximum passage of light, as glass; transparent; translucent; non-opaque.

(2) Clear; limpid.

(3) In fashion, a see through fabric or a garment made of such (used loosely also of many which are semi-opaque and thus technically subpellucid).

(4) Easily recognized or seen through; apparent, obvious (archaic).

(5) By extension, of music or some other sound: not discordant or harsh; clear and pure-sounding (technical use only in composition, academic study or criticism).

(6) Figuratively, clear in meaning, expression, or style; not obscure.

(7) Figuratively, of a person, able to think and understand clearly; not confused, perspicacious (now rare).

(8) In anatomy, as "zona pellucida" (the plural: zonae pellucidae or zonæ pellucidæ), a glycoprotein membrane surrounding the plasma membrane of an oocyte.

1610-1620: A learned borrowing from the Latin pellūcidus, a variant of perlūcidus (transparent, pellucid; very bright, radiant; very understandable), from perlūcēre (to shine through), the construct being per- (as a prefix, “through; throughout; completely, thoroughly”), from the primitive Indo-European root per- (forward, hence “through”) + lūcēre or lūcidus (clear; full of light, bright, shining (and figuratively “easily understood, clear, lucid”)), from lūceō (to shine; to become visible, show through (and figuratively “to be apparent, conspicuous, or evident”)).  The construct of the Latin lucidus was understood as lux (light), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European lewk- (bright; to see; to shine) + -idus (the suffix forming adjectives conveying the sense “tending towards”).  The construct in English may thus be understood as pe(r) +-l- + lucid (see through).  The (now rare) noun was derived from the adjective.  In technical use, the preferred word to convey the idea of “somewhat pellucid; tending toward pellucidness” appears to be subpellucid (along with the derived subpellucidly & subpellucidness, all sometimes hyphenated) rather than semi-pellucid, quasi-pellucid, or other possibilities.  The comparative is “more pellucid” and the superlative “most pellucid”).  Pellucid is a noun & adjective, pellucidness & pellucidity are nouns and pellucidly is an adverb; the noun plural is pellucids.  Pellucid and its derivatives are good words and should be used, just not by lawyers.

The pellucid water of Flathead Lake, Montana USA.

“These wells were filled with water, and with a blue light, celestial in its loveliness,—a light ethereal and pellucid.” (Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska (1914) by Charles Warren Stoddard (1843-1909)).  In literary and poetic use, one will sometimes find “pellucid waters” but the word seem too obscure for advertizing copy-writers who, seeking pellucidity, prefer “crystal clear” although the once uncommon “azure” seems to have become sufficient familiar for the bays of the Mediterranean or Caribbean to be called “azure blue waters”.

Lindsay Lohan in swimsuit with subpellucid V-cut panel; clutch purse by Chanel and wearing Lanvin Classic Garnet ballet flats, Los Angeles, August 2012.

Although there are a few which are designed to be eye-catching, the extensive use the industry makes of pellucid (see-through) fabrics mostly is barely noticed because typically the application is either (1) only subpellucid, (2) covering non-sexualized body-parts such as arms or (3) as an overlay designed to highlight or subtly alter the color or texture of the fabric with which what lies beneath is made.  One intriguing tradition exploiting a fabric’s quality of pellucidly which has endured despite the unpromising origin is the bride’s wedding veil.  Historically, the idea of the veil was to conceal the bride’s appearance from the groom until the priest had pronounced the couple man & wife, thereby having joined together in the name of God what “let no man tear asunder”.  The functional advantage was as a precaution against a groom finding grounds for rejecting his betrothed in those once not uncommon cases where the ceremony was the first time the two had met, the arrangements having been hammered out by the often distant families, sometimes years in advance.  The point at which the bride was unveiled and the priest spoke the words: “You may now kiss the bride” which, in the cases of arranged marriages, actually meant: “You’re stuck with her mate; good luck.”  Even in times gone by however, most brides and grooms were well known to each other (“known” sometimes in the Biblical sense, thus the need for sometimes hastily arranged marriages) but the veil became a popular part of a bride’s ensemble and still they’re sometimes used.

In most parts of the English-speaking world, in recent decades there have been attempts to ensue “plain English” is used in legislation and legal documents.  It’s an admirable goal for many reasons but perhaps the most obvious is a contribution to increased compliance with laws, simply because pellucidness in wording would decrease the risk of unintentional breaches of law and legal obligations, at least some of which are the consequences of misunderstanding; as an example, a word like pellucid should not appear in legal documents because it is little-known and rare.  Using sentences plain in meaning and unambiguous even to those without legal training improves communication which increases information, thereby reducing the need for interpreters (lawyers), thereby decreasing the costs associated with the administration and application of legislation and other legal documents.  Those fond of conspiracy theories like to find in the difficult language a sort of job-creation programme for lawyers but it was really a product of the power of precedent, the phrases and terms of law, many still in their original Latin, having gained a certainty of meaning and thus maintained for generation after generation.  Language itself also had some inertia, the idea of a “legal style” of writing soon entrenched as “correct” and maintained by law schools and practitioners.

Lindsay Lohan and her lawyer in Court, Los Angeles, December 2011.

The matter for a long had attracted the interest of reformers in the law and parliaments but began to coalesce as a movement in the post-war years and this may at least have been influenced by the extent to which the increasing volume of laws passed by modern states were starting to intrude on the lives of more citizens, most of whom historically had little direct contact with legislation unless they came to the attention of the police.  In 1950, when sitting as a Lord of Appeal, the English judge Lord Radcliffe (1899–1977) observed what as early as 1913 had come to be called “legalese” had become: “…a sort of hieratic language… by which the priests incant the commandments.  I seem to see the ordinary citizen today standing before the law like the laity in a medieval church: at the far end the lights glow, the priestly figures move to and fro, but it is in an unknown tongue that the great mysteries of right and wrong are proclaimed.”  He concluded by asking: “...what willing allegiance can a man owe to a canon of obligation which is not even conceived in such a form as to be understood?”

It was a reasonable question, even if phrased in a way many would find as arcane as the object of his Lordship’s critique it wasn’t until the 1970s that law reform commissions and others began to circulate discussion papers and proposals  The rationale was encapsulated in one fragment in the decision handed down by Lord Donaldson (1920–2005; Master of the Rolls 1982-1992) in Merkur Island Shipping Corp v Laughton [1983]1 All ER 334: “The efficacy and maintenance of the rule of law, which is the foundation of any parliamentary democracy, has at least two prerequisites.  First people must understand that it is in their interests, as well as in that of the community as a whole, that they should live their lives in accordance with the rules and all the rules.  Second they must know what those rules are.”  In the 1990s, reform of language began to happen at scale and there was in this an element of technological determinism, the digitization of legislation and codes meaning texts ancient and modern began to appear on the screens of word processors, making modernization a simpler process.

Antidisestablishmentarianism

Antidisestablishmentarianism (pronounced an-tee-dis-uh-stab-lish-muhn-tair-ee-uh-niz-uhm)

Opposition to the withdrawal of state support or recognition from an established (state) church.  It was used especially in nineteenth century England by those opposed to separating the Church of England (Anglican) from the civil government.

1838: A compound word: anti + dis + establishment + arian + ism.  Anti- was from the Middle English from the Latin from the Ancient Greek.  It was a prefixal use of antí; akin to the Sanskrit ánti (opposite), the Latin ante and the Middle Dutch ende.  Dis- was a Latin prefix used to impart the meanings “apart,” “asunder,” “away,” “utterly,” or having a privative, negative, or reversing force.  In English, it’s long been used freely, especially with these latter senses, as an English formative.  Establishment was from the Old French establissement (and persists in Modern French as établissement), from the verb establir from the Old Occitan establir, from Latin stabilīre (present active infinitive of stabiliō); cognates included the Occitan establir, the French établir and the Italian stabilire.  The –arian suffix dates from circa 1530 and was from the Late Latin ariānus.  It was a suffix forming personal nouns corresponding to Latin adjectives ending in -ārius or English adjectives or nouns ending in –ary and subsequently proved productive in English with other Latinate stems, forming nouns denoting a person who supports, advocates, or practices a doctrine, theory, or set of principles associated with the base word (authoritarian, vegetarian etc).  The –ism suffix was from the Ancient Greek –ismos & -isma noun suffixes, often directly, often through the Latin –ismus & -isma, though sometimes through the French –isme or the German –ismus, all ultimately from the Greek.  It appeared in loanwords from Greek, where it was used to form action nouns from verbs and on this model, was used as a productive suffix in the formation of nouns denoting action or practice, state or condition, principles, doctrines, a usage or characteristic, devotion or adherence (criticism; barbarism; Darwinism; despotism; plagiarism; realism; witticism etc).  The antonym (obviously) is disestablishmentarianism.  Antidisestablishmentarianism & antidisestablishmentarianist are nouns, antidisestablishmentarianistic is an adjective and antidisestablishmentarian is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is antidisestablishmentarianisms.

Portrait of King Henry VIII (circa 1509), oil on canvas by an unknown artist, Denver Art Museum.  This is the earliest portrait of Henry (as king) known to have survived.

It was Henry VIII (1491–1547; King of England (and Ireland after 1541) 1509-1547) who created what endures in England to this day as the established church, the phrase “Church of England” becoming frequently used immediately after the act of separation in 1534.  The king separated the English church from the authority of Rome to become one of a number created in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, not because of any theological or doctrinal differences, but in order to secure the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536).  Having found the Clement VII (Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, 1478–1534; pope 1523-1534) unwilling to annul, he had himself instead declared supreme head of the Church in England, the schism with Rome (with the exception of a brief interruption), unhealed to this day.  Problem solved.  There is a distinction between the Church in England and the Church of England, the roots of Christianity in the British Isles established during England’s time as a province of the Roman Empire early in the first millennium.  From these beginnings there were forks and regional divergences until 597 when a Gregorian mission by Augustine of Canterbury visited, Christianity in England from that point subject to the authority of the Pope.  So it continued until 1534, England even once providing a pope (Adrian IV, circa 1100- 1159, pope 1154-1159), noted now for his contribution to the Irish problem, something unsolved even now.

Generally pointless and the Germans do it better

Romanus Pontifex non concedit. Tomb of Clement VII, carved in marble by Nanni di Baccio Bigio (pseudonym of Giovanni Lippi (circa 1508-1568), Santa Maria Sopra, Minerva.  Had the times been different, Clement may have been inclined towards pragmatism and found some loophole permitting an annulment but given the geopolitics, he was constrained.

With 28 letters and twelve syllables, antidisestablishmentarianism is often cited as the longest word in English.  However, floccinaucinihilipilification (a waggish schoolboy pseudo-Latin creation meaning “the act or habit of describing or regarding something as worthless” (the construct being floccus (a wisp) +‎ naucum (a trifle) +‎ nihilum (nothing) +‎ pilus (a hair) + -fication (process of becoming)) is one letter longer and the longest non-technical word in English (there is the 29-letter plural form "antidisestablishmentarianisms" which ties with floccinaucinihilipilification and the 30-letter "antidisestablishmentarianistic" but such derived forms are dismissed by the editors of dictionaries as artificial concoctions).  It was once used in a debate in the UK's House of Commons, although, even that wasn’t the longest ever spoken in Westminster, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (a factitious creation said to mean “a lung disease caused by inhalation of very fine silica dust usually found in volcanos”) having been earlier used during a select committee enquiry.  An opportunist extension of the medical term pneumonoconiosis, it was coined during the proceedings of the National Puzzlers' League convention (a natural home of English eccentricity) in 1935 in an attempt to create English’s longest word but was dismissed by dictionaries as fake, clinicians and textbooks still referring to the disease as pneumonoconiosis, pneumoconiosis, or silicosis.  British dictionaries may feel compelled to include antidisestablishmentarianism but many overseas publications do not, on the basis there’s hardly any record of its use except in lists of long words which some editors treat as lexicographical freak shows.  Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary lists the longest as "electroencephalographically", a physician’s diagnostic tool.

English doesn't encourage the conjuring of the long compound words familiar in German.  The classic long German word is Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän (42 letters) meaning "Danube steamship company captain" but there are others, not all of which dictionaries accept.  Betäubungsmittelverschreibungsverordnung (41 letters) means "regulation requiring a prescription for an anaesthetic”; Bezirksschornsteinfegermeister (30 letters) means “head district chimney sweep"; Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften (39 letters) means "legal protection insurance companies".  Enterprising Germans created Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft (80 letters) meaning "association of subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services" but this was judged bogus bogus and rejected the authorities which held the 63-letter Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz ("beef labelling regulation and delegation of supervision law") to be the longest.  It was a real word in actual (if rare) use though usually through the more manageable abbreviation ReÜAÜG but it was rendered obsolete by changes to EU regulations.  Currently, the longest word accepted by most German dictionaries is the 36 letter Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung (automobile liability insurance).

Google ngram (a quantitative and not qualitative measure): Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.  In the matter of antidisestablishmentarianism, the spike in late twentieth century "use" represents the effect of the internet encouraging the creation of many lists and on-line replications of printed material thus the apparent paradox of the appearance of frequent use which actually reflected the existence of many sources explaining why the anyway rare word had become otherwise functionally extinct.

Regarding the substantive matter of disestablishment, it’s a political position developed in nineteenth century Britain in opposition to the Liberal Party’s proposal for the removal of the Anglicans’ status as the state church of England, Ireland, and Wales.  The establishment was maintained in England, but the Church of Ireland was disestablished in 1871 and the four Church of England dioceses in Wales were disestablished in 1920, becoming the Church in Wales.  Given the nature (and relevance) of the modern Church of England, it’s a matter seldom mentioned as a constitutional reform of pressing importance.

Director

Director (pronounced dih-rek-ter or dahy-rek-ter)

(1) A person or thing that directs others or other things (Director of Engineering, Director of Sales etc).

(2) In corporate law, one of a group of persons chosen to control or govern the affairs of a company or corporation, usually as a member of a board of directors and sometimes also including executive functions.

(3) The person responsible for the interpretive aspects of a stage, film, or television production; the person who supervises the integration of all the elements, as acting, staging, lighting etc.

(4) In musical or other artistic productions (stage, art galleries, opera etc) one in charge of all artistic (and sometimes administrative) matters (in larger operations the roles sometimes specialized: sound director, script director etc).

(5) The manager or chief executive of certain schools, institutes, government bureaux etc.

(6) In military use, a mechanical or electronic device which continuously calculates firing data for use against an airplane or other moving target, configured usually to display graphical information about in real time the targets of a weapons system.

(7) In chemistry, the common axis of symmetry of the molecules of a liquid crystal.

(8) In music, a synonym for conductor (US use, now less common).

(9) A counsellor, confessor, or spiritual guide (now less common).

1470-1480: The construct was direct(us) + -or.  A borrowing in the sense of “a guide” from the Anglo French directour & the French directeur the agent noun from the Latin dirigere (set straight, arrange; give a particular direction to) and its source, the Late Latin directorem, from the Latin dīrectus, the perfect passive participle of dīrigō (straighten, direct), the construct being dis- (asunder, in pieces, apart, in two) + regō (to direct, to guide, keep straight; make straight; rule), from the primitive Indo-European root reg (move in a straight line).  The -or suffix was from the Middle English -our, from the Old French -eor, from the Latin -ātor and reinforced by the Old French -or and its source, the Latin -tor & -tōrem.  It was used to create an agent noun, often from a verb, indicating a person or object (often machines or parts of them) that do the verb or part of speech with which they are formed.  In electrical engineering it has the specific use of being appended to the names of members of classes of components, especially those that have an extensive property name of the same root suffixed with -ance (eg to convey the sense that resistors possess resistance and inductors possess inductance).  The alternative spelling directour became rare in the late eighteenth century and is long obsolete.  Director, directorate & directorship are nouns, directing is a verb, directed is a verb & adjective, directorial is an adjective and directorially is an adverb; the noun plural is directors.  The feminine forms of the noun (directress & directrix) were always rare and are now thought extinct (and certainly proscribed).

Lindsay Lohan with Spanish fashion designer Estrella Arch (b 1974), on the catwalk at the conclusion of Emanuel Ungaro's Spring-Summer show in Paris, October 2009.  Ms Lohan was employed as a creative director at the House of Emanuel Ungaro, founded in 1965 by French fashion designer Emanuel Ungaro (1933–2019)

The noun director (corporate sense of “one of a number of persons having authority to manage the affairs of a company” was known as early as the 1630s; the theatrical sense of “the leader of a company of performers” dates from 1911 and if was from here the use was picked up by those in charge of the artistic or technical aspects of movie-making.  The noun directorship (condition or office of a director) has been in use since the 1720s, the adjective directorial (that directs) known since 1770.  The noun directorate was used first in 1834 of “a body of directors” and may immediately have be used individually of the “office of a director” but this was certainly first documented in 1837.  Director is a word defined both by its history of use (film director, director of football etc) and law (company director) so although titles like supervisor, head, manager, leader, administrator, chief, boss etc certainly implies “one who directs”, they’re traditionally not used as direct synonyms because “director” is a “loaded word”.  It’s also modified as needed (art director, managing director, sub-director etc).

1967 Imperial Crown Coupe with "Mobile Director Package"; note the rearward facing front passenger seat.  

In the years between 1955-1975, Chrysler re-created Imperial as a separate, stand-alone division within the corporation (albeit with some sharing with other divisions of engine-transmission combinations and certain other components), emulating the structure Ford used with Lincoln.  Although the approach, especially during the early years, yielded some success, the separation didn’t survive the troubled decades of the 1970s (by which time the platform and body-shells were shared with the other divisions and much of the earlier distinctiveness had been surrendered); a couple of subsequent, half-heated, revivals proved abortive.  The Imperial in 1967-1968 had actually switched from the separate frame used since 1955 to the unitary construction of the full-sized ranges offered by other divisions but maintained a certain degree of difference by virtue of a unique body, albeit one with slightly reduced dimensions from those of the previous decade.  Although styled with an elegance derived from its simplicity of line, the Imperial continued to not quite match the timeless modernity of the Lincoln or the indefinable but incomparable allure of the Cadillac and although sales did improve in 1967, the volumes were only ever a fraction of its two competitors.  The basic engineering though was sound, the TorqueFlite transmission as responsive and robust as any (although it didn’t quite slur as effortlessly between ratios as the Cadillac’s Turbo-Hydramatic) and the 440 cubic inch (7.2 litre) a notch better, something the others wouldn’t match until 1968.  Significantly, all at the time acknowledged the Imperial was the better road car although, given it operated in a market where quietness and isolation from the environment was afforded more of a premium than handling prowess, any real-world advantage in the target market was probably marginal.

The more stylish if less roadable opposition: 1967 Cadillac Coupe DeVille (left) & 1967 Lincoln Continental Coupe (right).

In those years however, the Imperial did offer something truly unique.  The “Mobile Director Package” was available exclusively on the Imperial Crown Coupe and reflected (within the limits of what the available technology would then permit) what Chrysler thought a company director would most value in an automobile being used as a kind of “office on the move” and it included: an extendable walnut-topped table which could be unfolded over the rear seats, a gooseneck (Tensor brand) high-intensity lamp which could be plugged into the cigarette lighter on either side of the car (in a sign of the times, Imperials had four cigarette lighters installed) and most intriguingly, the front passenger seat could rotate 180° to permit someone comfortably to use the tables and interact with those in the rear.  All the publicity material associated with the Mobile Director Package did suggest the rearward-facing seat would likely be occupied by a director’s secretary and as one might imagine, the configuration did preclude her (and those depicted were usually women) using a lap & sash seat-belt but she would always have been in arm’s reach of at least one cigarette lighter so there was that.  The package was available only for those two seasons and in its first years cost US$597.40 (some US$5500 adjusted for 2023 values).  The cost of the option was in 1968 reduced to US$317.60 (some US$2800 adjusted for 2023 values) but that did little to stimulate demand, only 81 buyers of Crown Coupes ticking the box so even if the new safety regulations hadn’t outlawed the idea, it’s doubtful the Mobile Director Package would have appeared on the option list in 1969 when the new (and ultimately doomed) “fuselage” Imperials debuted.

Imperial's advertising always emphasised the "business" aspect of the package but the corporation also circulated a photograph of the table supporting a (presumably magnetic) chessboard and another with a bunch of grapes tumbling seductively.  The latter may have been to suggest the utility of the package when stopping for a picnic with one's secretary.  Once advertising agencies got ideas, they were hard to restrain.    

The advertising copy at the time claimed the package was “designed for the busy executive who must continue his work while he travels”, serving also as “an informal conference lounge”.  The Imperial was a big car (although the previous generations were larger still) but “lounge” was a bit of a stretch but “truth in advertising” laws were then not quite as onerous as they would become.  More accurate were the engineering details, the table able to “pivot to any of four different positions, supported by a sturdy chrome-plated pillar and in the forward position, it can convert into a padded armrest between the two front seats while extended, it opens out to twice its original size with a lever on the table swivel support to permit adjustments to the height”.  It was noted “a special tool is used for removing the table and storing it in the trunk” the unstated implication presumably that in deference to the secretary’s finger-nails, that would be a task for one’s chauffeur.  The US$597.40 the option listed at in 1967 needs to be compared with the others available and only the most elaborate of the air condition systems was more expensive.

Imperial option list, 1967.

The package as it appeared in showrooms was actually modest compared with the “Mobile Executive” car the corporation sent around the show circuit in 1966.  That Imperial had been fitted with a telephone, Dictaphone, writing table, typewriter, television, a fax machine, reading lamp and stereophonic sound system.  The 1966 show car was also Crown Coupe but it was much more ambitious, anticipating advances in mobile communications which would unfold over the next quarter century.  At the time, car phones were available (the first service in the US offered during the late 1940s) although they were expensive and the nature of the bandwidth used and the lack of data compression meant that the range was limited as was the capacity; only several dozen calls able simultaneously to be sustained.  In 1966, there was even the novelty of a Datafax, able to send or receive a US Letter-sized (slightly smaller than A4) page of text in six minutes.  That sounds unimpressive in 2023 (or compared even with the 14.4 kbit/s for Group 3 FaxStream services of the 1990s) but the appropriate comparison is with the contemporary alternatives (driving, walking or using the US Mail) and six minutes would have been a considerable advance.  As it was, the tempting equipment awaited improvements in infrastructure such as the analogue networks of the 1980s and later cellular roll-outs and these technologies contributed to the extent of use which delivered the economies of scale which eventually would make possible smart phones.

The 1966 car which toured the show circuit demonstrated the concept which, in simplified form, would the next year appear on the option list but things like telephones and fax machines anticipated the future by many years (although fax machines in cars (Audi one of a handful to offer them) never became a thing).  The Dictaphone did however make the list as one of Chrysler's regular production options (RPO) in the early 1970s and the take-up rate was surprisingly high although the fad quickly passed, dealers reporting the customers saying they worked well but they "never used them".

Gown

Gown (pronounced goun) 

(1) A type of woman's dress or robe, especially one full-length and worn on formal occasions and often styled as “evening gown” or “ball gown”.

(2) As nightgown, a loose fitting garment worn by sleeping (historically by both men & women but now most associated with the latter); the shortened for is “nightie”.

(3) As surgical gown, a light, protective garment worn in hospitals by medical staff, a specialized form of which is the isolation gown.

(4) As dressing gown (also call bathrobe), a garment in the form of an open robe secured by a tie and often worn over pajamas, after a bath and prior to dressing or on other occasions where there’s no immediate need to dress.

(5) A loose, flowing outer garment in various forms, worn to denote an office held, profession practiced or as an indication of rank or status, most associated with formal academic dress (sometimes in the phrase “cap & gown”).

(6) Those who work or study at a university as opposed to the other residents of the university town, expressed in the phrase “town & gown”.

(7) Historically, the dress of civil, as opposed to military officers.

(8) To supply with or dress in a gown.

1300-1350: From Middle English goune & gowne, from Anglo-Norman gune & goune (fur-trimmed coat, pelisse), from the Old French goune (robe, coat; nun's habit), from the Late Latin gunna (a garment of fur or leather), from the Ancient Greek γούνα (goúna) (coarse garment), of unknown origin but may be from a Balkan or Apennine language where it seems to have been used as early as the eighth century to describe a fur (or fur-lined), cloak-like garment worn by old or infirm monks; More speculatively, some scholars suggest a Celtic source.  The alternative explanation suggests a Scythian origin, from the Proto-Iranian gawnám (fur), the possibility of this link supported by the Younger Avestan gaona (body hair) and the Ossetian гъун (ǧun).  The alternative spelling gowne is obsolete and descendants in other languages include the Bengali গাউন (gaun), the Japanese ガウン, the Korean  가운 (gaun), the Malay gaun, the Punjabi ਗਾਊਨ (gāūna) and the Welsh gown.  Gown is a noun and verb and gowned is an adjective; the noun plural is gowns.

Surgeon in blood-splattered surgical gown (also called hospital or medical gowns), mid-surgery.

As late as the eighteenth century, gown was the common word for what is now usually described as dress and gown in this sense persisted in the US longer than in the UK and there was on both sides of the Atlantic something of a twentieth century revival and the applied uses (bridal gown, nightgown etc) became more or less universal.  The meaning “a loose, flowing outer garment in various forms, worn to denote an office held, profession practiced or as an indication of rank” emerged in the late fourteenth century and the collective singular for “residents of a university” dates from the 1650s, still heard in the rhyming phrase “town & gown”.  The night-gown (worn once by both men & women but now associated almost exclusively with the latter) became a thing in the fourteenth century.

Lindsay Lohan in white & black color-blocked bandage dress.

Dress dates from circa 1300 and was from the Middle English dressen & dresse (to arrange, put in order), from the Anglo-Norman & Old French dresser, drecier (which persists in as dresser), from the unattested Vulgar Latin dīrēctiāre, from the Classical Latin dīrēctus, the perfect passive participle of dīrigō (to arrange in lines, direct, steer), the construct being dis- (the prefix in this context meaning “apart; asunder; in two’) + regō (to govern, manage), ultimately from the primitive Indo-European h₃reǵ- (straight, right).  The noun dress was derived from the verb and emerged in the sense of “attire” in the early 1600s.  Originally, a dress was always something which covered both the upper and lower parts of the female body but not of necessity in once piece.  The dressing gown seems first to have been described as such in 1854 although in French both robe de chambre (dressing gown) & robe de nuit (nightgown) had been in use for centuries.

Lindsay Lohan in dressing gowns; in the US such things would usually be called bathrobes.

Robe dates from the mid-thirteenth century Middle English robe & robbe and was from the Old French robe, robbe & reube (booty, spoils of war, robe, garment), from the Frankish rouba & rauba (booty, spoils, stolen clothes (literally “things taken”)), from the Old High German roub, from the Proto-Germanic raubō, raubaz & raubą (booty, that which is stripped or carried away), from the primitive Indo-European Hrewp- (to tear away, peel off).  The noun use of robe to refer to garments had entered general use by the late thirteenth century, an adoption of a meaning from the Old French, presumably because fine clothing looted from defeated enemies were among the most prized of the spoils of war.  The Old French robe (and the alternative spellings) had as concurrent meanings both “clothing” & “plunder: as did the Germanic forms including the Old English reaf (plunder, booty, spoil; garment, armor, vestment).  By the late thirteenth century robe had assumed the meaning “a long, loose outer garment reaching almost to the floor, worn by men or women over other dress”, those closest European equivalents being the twelfth century Old French robe (long, loose outer garment) and the Old High German rouba (vestments).  In royal, academic and ecclesiastical circles, the particular style of robes became regulated to denote rank, function or or membership of a religious order and royal courts would include offices like “page of the robes”, “mistress of the robes”, master of the robes etc” although those titles are (to modern eyes) misleading because their responsibilities extended to garments generally and not just robes as they’re now understood.  The metonymic sense of “the robe” for "the legal profession" dates from the 1640s, a reference to the dark robes worn by advocates when appearing in court.  Robe went on productively to be adopted for other purposes including (1) in the US “the skin of a bison (later applied to other slaughtered beasts) used as a cloak or wrap, (2) a short form of wardrobe (especially when built into a wall rather than being stand-alone) and (3) the largest and strongest leaves on a tobacco plant.

Singer Dr Taylor Swift in academic gown after being conferred an honorary doctorate in fine arts from New York University, May 2022.

In formal and vocational use, gown and robe and well understood and there tends not to be overlap except among those unacquainted with such things.  That’s understandable because to the casual observer the things can look much the same and the differences in nomenclature are more to do with tradition than style or cut.  Judges for example ware judicial robes and in the US these are usually black whereas elsewhere in the English-speaking world they can be of quite vivid hues, red and scarlet the most admired.  The US influence however seem pervasive and the trend is now almost universally black, certainly among newly established courts; in the same courts, barristers robes look much the same the term “judicial robe” is exclusive to the bench, the advocates garments variously called “barristers’ robes” “legal robes” or lawyers’ robes”.  Academics however wear gowns and again, the Americans tend to favor black while in the English tradition, all the colors of the rainbow have been seen.  These differ from surgical (also known as hospital or medical gowns) which, compared with just about every other gown, really aren’t gowns at all.  Surgical gowns are made usually in a blue, beige or green pastel color (better to show the blood) and are a kind of inverted dress which is fastened at the back (by an assistant so the wearer’s fingers don’t pick up germs).  In the UK parliament, there were many robes for offices of state and the one worn by the speaker made its way to colonial and dominion parliaments.  They're now rarely worn except on ceremonial occasions and the best known is probably that of the UK’s chancellors of the exchequer although the last one, dating from the late nineteenth century, is said to have “gone missing” while Gordon Brown (b 1951; UK prime-minister 2007-2010) was chancellor.

New South Wales (Australia) Supreme Court and Court of Appeal judges in judicial robes during the pandemic.

It’s in women’s fashion where the distinction between a gown and a dress can become muddied and probably most illustrative is the matter of the “wedding dress” and the “wedding gown”.  Even among couturiers, there’s actually no agreed definition of where one ends and the other begins and it’s very much in the eye of the beholder although the eye of the retailer is doubtless quite an influence, the theory being that the grander the design and the more the fabric, the more plausible is the label “wedding gown” and the higher the price-tag.  These informal (but serviceable) rules of thumb work also for dresses & gowns in general, the distinction more one of semantics and personal preference although in saying that, it’s only at the margins where there can be confusion; a minimalist LBD (little black dress) would never be confused with a gown and the grandest creations recalling those worn at the famous balls held in conjunction with the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) would never be called dresses.

Watercolor of one of the many balls held during the Congress of Vienna.

Despite that, in the narrow technical sense, to a seamstress, all gowns are dresses, but not all dresses are gowns and as late as the early eighteenth century the word "dress" was still not the exclusive province of women’s clothing ensembles.  In recent centuries, the dress has been defined by its modifiers (sun-dress, summer-dress, evening-dress, travelling dress, riding-dress etc) and the modern convention seems to be that if an invitation specifies semi-formal then an evening dress is expected and that might be something thought a gown but not necessarily.  However, when an invitation states that the occasion is formal, women are expected to wear an evening gown.  Classically, that’s understood to be something at once precise yet frivolous, with a tight fitting bodice and a skirt which reaches to the floor and this was once the accepted standard for any red-carpet event of note but the recent trend towards outrageous displays of skin has in the entertainment industry subverted the tradition although the audience is expected still to adhere.

Lindsay Lohan in a diaphanous gown, Met Gala, New York, 2007.

Asunder

Asunder (pronounced uh-suhn-der)

(1) To separate into parts; in or into pieces.

(2) Things apart or widely separated:

Pre-1000: From the Old English sundrian & syndrian (to sunder, separate, divide), from sundor (separately, apart), from the Proto-Germanic sundraz & sunder (source also of the Old Norse sundr, the Old Frisian sunder, the Old High German suntar (aside, apart) and the German sondern (to separate), from the primitive Indo-European root sen- & sene- (apart, separated (source also of the Sanskrit sanutar (away, aside), the Avestan hanare (without), the Greek ater (without), the Latin sine (without), the Old Church Slavonic svene (without) and the Old Irish sain (different)).  It was cognate with the Danish sønder, the Swedish sönder, the Dutch zonder, the German sonder, the Icelandic sundur, the Faroese sundur and the Norwegian sunder & sønder (akin to the Gothic sundrō).  The adverb asunder (into a position apart, separate, into separate parts) was a mid-twelfth century contraction of the Old English on sundran, the construct being on (preposition) + sundran (separate position) and in Middle English was used in the sense of "distinguish, tell apart".  The related forms are sundered & sundering. 

Marriage and divorce

Although it appears also in Mark 10:9, the phrase “what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” is best known from Matthew 19:6 and it became part of the Christian wedding ritual, for long preceded at some point by the injunction “should anyone present know of any reason why this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace”.

The formalization of the ritual during the middle ages reflected the medieval church’s regulation of rules within which people could marry.  By the twelfth century, the “consent theory” of marriage had emerged by which a couple married by exchanging certain words, regardless of whether witnesses or a priest was present.  If they exchanged vows without witnesses, the marriage was said to be “clandestine” and while legal (a valid, binding sacrament) it was not licit (allowed), a binary distinction that would appear in the development of the law of both contract and equity. 

Thus the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) forbid clandestine marriages and began the codification of the forms and processes of formal marriage, requiring an announcement of the impending marriage to be “…read or published on three successive Sundays prior…” to the actual ceremony to ensure that impediments to be raised, thus preventing invalid marriages.  Including this in the ceremony was a final chance to object before the marriage was declared, after which it could not be torn asunder.

Torn asunder.  The 2016 Brexit (British exit from membership of the European Union (EU)) referendum was narrowly won by the "leave" campaign.  It was a very bad outcome and one intended to serve the interests of a tiny elite, the members of which stoked the hatreds, fears and prejudices of those less socially sophisticated, inducing them to vote against their own interests.  No good will come of this.