tog

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A cloak.
  2. A coat.
  3. swimwear.
  4. A unit of thermal resistance, being ten times the temperature difference (in °C) between the two surfaces of a material when the flow of heat is equal to one watt per square metre
verb
  1. To dress (often with up or out).
adv
  1. Abbreviation of together.
noun
  1. A tautog, a large wrasse native to the eastern coast of North America.
verb
  1. To fish for tautog.
noun
  1. A photographer, especially a professional one.

Pronunciation

/tɒɡ/ /tɔɡ/ /tɑɡ/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tog.wav

Word forms

tog togs togging togged

Etymology

Shortened from earlier togemans, togeman (“cloak, loose coat”), from Middle English tog, toge, togue, from Old French togue, from Latin toga (“cloak, mantle”) (compare the doublets toga and toge). Togeman(s) was an old thieves' and vegabonds' cant for "cloak; coat". By the 1700s the noun tog was used as a shortened form, then with the meaning "coat"; before 1800 the word (in this sense usually in the plural; see togs) started to mean "clothing". The verb tog ("to dress up") came shortly after. The unit of thermal resistance was coined in the 1940s after the clo, a unit of thermal insulation of clothing, which was itself derived from clothes or clothing.

Derived words

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.