Shawl
nounA piece of fabric worn over the shoulders or head, usually for warmth or decoration.
How to spell shawl
5 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce shawl
What does shawl mean?
- nounA piece of fabric worn over the shoulders or head, usually for warmth or decoration.
Shawl in a sentence
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She wrapped a woollen shawl around her shoulders before stepping onto the cold platform.
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The antique lace shawl had been passed down through three generations of the family.
Where does shawl come from?
Language of origin: Other
Shawl came into English in the early 1660s from the Persian word shal, a name for a class of fine woollen cloth and the wrap made from it. The Persian term may itself derive from Shaliat, a town in India once famous for producing these textiles, and it travelled westward along trade routes through Urdu and Hindi before reaching Europe. English merchants of the East India Company brought both the cloth and the word home, and the soft, fringed Kashmir wraps quickly became a fashionable accessory. The spelling settled with that slightly awkward 'aw' followed by a silent-feeling cluster, reflecting the way English absorbed the foreign vowel sound rather than any native root. Because the word is borrowed and the spoken vowel offers no clear guide to the letters, writers sometimes hesitate over whether it ends in -awl or -all.
How the word is built
- shawl (single root; no prefix or suffix)
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