Janey Frawley
The Brassiere: Etymology
The French word brassiére refers to a baby's vest (undershirt) or lifebelt, underbodice or harness. The word brassiére derives from braciére, an Old French word meaning "arm protector" and referring to military uniforms (bras in French means "arm"). This later became used for a military breast plate, and later for a type of woman's corset. The current French term for brassiére is soutien-gorge, literally, "held under the neck" or "throat-support". In French, gorge (throat) was a common euphemism for the breast. This dates back to the garment developed by Herminie Cadolle in 1905.
The term "brassiere" seems to have come into use in the English language as early as 1893. Manufacturers were using the term by about 1904, Vogue magazine first used it in 1907, and by 1911 the word had made its way into the Oxford English Dictionary. In the 1930s, "brassiere" gradually came to be shortened to "bra". In the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec, both soutien-gorge and brassiére are used interchangeably.
The claim that the brassiere was invented by a man named Otto Titzling (phonetically tit-sling) who lost a lawsuit with Phillip de Brassiere (fill up de'brassiere) is an urban legend that originated with the 1971 book Bust-Up: The Uplifting Tale of Otto Titzling and the Development of the Bra and was propagated in a song from the movie Beaches.
Copyright: This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on Brassiere.