blunket

Etymology
From, from , perhaps the past participle of , from , , in imitation of 🇨🇬, ; ultimately from. The adjective is attested earlier than the noun, yet it remains unclear whether the fabric (which often retained the spelling ) gave its name to the color or the other way around. The word is similar to, inviting speculation that it derives (like that word) from , but the most common form even as late as Early Modern English was blunket, and some early works seem to identify it as dark red or violet, which makes that theory phonologically and semantically problematic. : Blunket, a. and ''sb. Obs.'' Forms: 5-7 blanket, 6 bluncket, blancket, bloncket, bloncat, 7 blonket, 5-8 blunket. [It is uncertain whether the adj. sense gave its name to the fabric, or whether the name of the fabric was transferred to its colour. The original form of the word is also doubtful, though blunket is both the earliest and by far the most frequent. This makes it doubtful whether it can have been an adoption of OF. blanquet, var. of blanchet, dim. of blanc white (and thus originally the same as blanket), a derivation which would to some extent suit the sense.] A. adj. Grey, greyish blue, light blue. 1488 ''Lord High. Treas. Accts.'' (Jam.) For x elne and j quarter of blanket caresay to be hoe. c 1534 ''Pol. Verg. Eng. Hist.'' (1846) I. 74 Thei weare called Pictes .. ether of their bluncket heres, ether of certaine marckes made with whot irons. a 1552 Leland ''Brit. Coll.'' III. 138 Caesius, gray of colour, or blunket. 1552 Huloet, Blancket coloure, caesius. 1579 Spenser ''Sheph. Cal.'' May 5 Our bloncket liueryes [gloss, gray coates] bene all to sadde. 1612 Cotgr., Couleur perse, skie colour. Azure colour, a Blunket, or light blue. 1622 Peacham ''Compl. Gentl.'' (1661) 155 Blanket colour, i.e. a light watchet. 1657 W. Coles Adam in Eden cxxxv, Gilloflowers of such variable colours .. Horseflesh, blunket, purple, and white. 1783 Ainsworth Lat. Dict. Caesius, gray, sky-coloured, with specks of gray blunket. B. sb. A fabric presumably of light grey or blue colour; possibly the same as blanket sb. 1. c 1440 ''Gaw. & Galar.'' ii. 3 (Jam.) Here belte was of blunket. 1541 ''Aberd. Reg.'' (Jam.) Three elln of bloncat. 1600 Queen's Wardrobe in Nichols ''Progr. Q. Elis.'' III. 506 One rounde kirtle of white clothe of silver chevernd, with bluncket, with lace of golde. James Robinson Planché, A Cyclopaedia of Costume Or Dictionary of Dress, Including Notices of Contemporaneous Fashions on the Continent: The Dictionary (1876), page 400: PLUNKET. [...] But plunket in the fifteenth century was the name of a colour:—"PLUNKET (coloure), jacinctus" ('Prompt. Parv.'); to which Mr. Way's note is as follows:—"'Plonkete,' or in another MS. 'blunket,' occurs in the 'Awntyks of Arthure,' and is explained by Sir F. Madden as signifying 'white stuff.'" "Hir belte was of plonkete with burdies fulle baulde." In Mr. Robson's edition, "blenket," st. xxix.; possibly the white stuff called in French blanchet. "Ploncket: colour blew." (Palsg.) "Caesius: graye of colour or blunkette, Scyricum blunket colour or light watchet. Venetus: lught blewe or blunket." (Elyot.) "Couleur pers.: skie colour, a blunket or light blue." (Colgrave.) The old gloss on Spenser's 'Shepherd's Calendar, May,' explains it as signifying grey. (See Nares and Jamieson, v. "Bloncat.") Here is a mass of contradictory information that is perfectly bewildering. A jacinth (hyacinth) is not white, nor grey, nor blue. It is a gem of the family of the garnets, and the Syrian is sometimes of a fine violet colour. This is the colour always indicated by hyacinthus or jacintus in mediaeval writings; but, apart from this, are we to consider that the cloths called "plunkets" gave their name to the colour, or that the colour, whichever it was, gave its name to the material? Of "the long coloured cloths called 'plunkets,'" some are described as celestines. These might have been of "the lyght blewe" or "skie colour" called "blunket" by Elyot and Cotgrave. They were distinguished by broad lists; but if not from the French blanchet, where no doubt "blanket," manufactured here as early as the reign of Edward III.,* where are we to seek the derivation of the word "plunket" either as applied to a cloth or a colour? *According to some glossarists, blanket took its name from one Thomas Blanket, who first set up a loom at Bristol in 1340.

Adjective

 * 1)  Gray; grayish or light blue.

Noun

 * 1)  A cloth, or kind of cloth (blanket cloth), generally but not always of this color.
 * 1)  A cloth, or kind of cloth (blanket cloth), generally but not always of this color.
 * 1)  A cloth, or kind of cloth (blanket cloth), generally but not always of this color.