flannel: [14] Flannel is probably one of the few Welsh contributions to the English language. It appears to be an alteration of Middle English flanen ‘sackcloth’, which was borrowed from Welsh gwlanen ‘woollen cloth’, a derivative of gwlān ‘wool’. This in turn is related to Latin lāna ‘wool’ and English wool. It is not clear where the British colloquial sense ‘insincere talk’ (which seems to date from the 1920s) comes from, although it may well have been inspired by Shakespeare’s unflattering application of the word to a Welshman in the Merry Wives of Windsor 1598: ‘I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel’, says Falstaff of Hugh Evans, a Welsh parson. => wool
flannel (n.)
"warm, loosely woven woolen stuff," c. 1300, flaunneol, probably related to Middle English flanen "sackcloth" (c. 1400); by Skeat and others traced to Welsh gwlanen "woolen cloth," from gwlan "wool," from Celtic *wlana, from PIE *wele- (1) "wool" (see wool). "As flannel was already in the 16th c. a well-known production of Wales, a Welsh origin for the word seems antecedently likely" [OED].
The Welsh origin is not a universally accepted etymology, due to the sound changes involved; Barnhart, Gamillscheg, Diez suggest the English word is from an Anglo-French diminutive of Old French flaine "a kind of coarse wool." Modern French flanelle is a 17c. borrowing from English.
双语例句
1. Wipe off any excess make-up with a clean, moist cotton flannel.
用干净的湿绒布擦去多余的化妆品。
来自柯林斯例句
2. a grey flannel suit
一套灰法兰绒西服
来自《权威词典》
3. She always wears a grey flannel trousers.
她总是穿一条灰色法兰绒长裤.
来自《简明英汉词典》
4. She was looking luscious in a flannel shirt.
她穿着法兰绒裙子,看上去楚楚动人.
来自《简明英汉词典》
5. No amount of flannel could disguise that this was, at best, a minimalist solution.