Gansey
A jumper or pullover, especially a heavy knitted one. The word the standard English 'sweater' or 'jumper' replaces in Hiberno-English speech. Plural ganseys.
Etymology
A round-trip word. English 'guernsey' meant a knitted jumper named after the Channel Island where the heavy navy style originated. Irish borrowed it as 'geansaí', anglicising the spelling to the local sound. Hiberno-English then borrowed the Irish form back, giving us 'gansey'. So the same Channel-Island place name reaches Hiberno-English through Irish rather than directly. The Irish-language form is the standard source for the Hiberno-English spelling.
In a sentence
Pickney nah even got a gansey on - child must be freezin'! - Zadie Smith, White Teeth, 2000
Historical notes
Gansey survives most strongly in coastal and rural Irish speech, where the heavy-knit garment retained its function long after urban speech had moved to 'jumper'. The Aran sweater, often called a 'fisherman's gansey' in older usage, is the most famous member of the family. The word is still in everyday use across Ireland, and it travels: Zadie Smith reached for it in _White Teeth_ to give a London-Caribbean voice its full register.
Alternate spellings
geansaí
Sources
- Dictionaries of the Scots Language (DSL), entry gansey (Scots usage). · dictionary
- Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla (Ó Dónaill), entry geansaí. · dictionary
- Smith, Zadie. White Teeth. Hamish Hamilton, 2000. · academic