Perennial (clothing)
A perennial is a shirt without a collar. It is part of the traditional work clothing of a carpenter and has no collar so that the sawdust cannot fall into it.
The German dictionary of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm explains the origin of the term: In the Gaunersprache as in the slang and the soldiers language of the late Middle Ages and the early modern period (12th to 16th century), the term "shirt" with the "hanffstaud" equated was . The clothes of the common people were woven from hemp and accordingly hard and stiff.
Individual evidence
- ^ Staude 9b after AVE-LALLEMAND, KLUGE and HORN