diaper

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A soft cloth or padded garment worn around a baby's bottom to absorb urine and waste; a nappy.

   It's your turn to change the baby's diaper.

2. 2
   verb

   To put a diaper on a baby or young child.

   Diapering a baby is something you learn to do quickly.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Diaper entered Middle English as a fabric name. Before the 15th century it appears to have denoted costly silk woven with gold thread; it later denoted linen or cotton woven in a repeating pattern of small diamonds. Pads for babies were originally made from this fabric. The word's elements are Greek dia-, “through” or “across,” and aspros, “white,” giving an overall sense of either “white at intervals” or “pure white.”

From Middle English dyaper, diapre, dyapre, from Old French diapre, dyapre, a variant of dyaspre, diaspre (“ornamental silk cloth embellished with floral or decorative geometrical patterns”), from Medieval Latin diaspra, diasprum (“a type of rich, valuable silken cloth”), probably from Byzantine Greek δίασπρος (díaspros, “very white; pure white”, adjective), from δια- (dia-, “across”) + ἄσπρος (áspros, “white”).

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary