Denim

How to spell denim

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce denim

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does denim mean?

1. nounA strong cotton twill fabric, typically blue, used to make jeans, jackets, and other hard-wearing clothing.

Denim in a sentence

• She patched the torn knee with a scrap of denim.

• The factory produces heavy denim for work trousers.

Where does denim come from?

Language of origin: French

Denim comes from the French phrase 'serge de Nimes', meaning 'serge from Nimes', a sturdy twilled cloth associated with the city of Nimes in southern France. English speakers heard the last two words run together, and by the late 1600s the fabric was being called 'serge denim' and then simply 'denim'. The original 'serge de Nimes' was probably not identical to the cotton twill we know today, but the name stuck even as the material evolved into the rugged blue cotton fabric used for hard-wearing workwear. The trousers made from it picked up the separate name 'jeans', which traces back to the Italian city of Genoa, so two famous fabrics each carry a hidden European place name. Because the word is really a city name in disguise, the spelling is short and plain: just de-nim, with no doubled letters or silent traps.

How the word is built

• de- (from, French 'de')
• nim (from Nîmes, a city in southern France)