pagne

English

Pagnes

Men and women wearing pagnes

Etymology

Borrowed from French pagne. Doublet of pan, pane, and pannus.

Noun

pagne (plural pagnes)

1. A length of wax-print fabric made in West Africa, worn as a single wrap or made into other clothing, and serving as a form of currency.
   • 1997, Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, A Modern Economic History of Africa: The nineteenth century, →ISBN, page 286:

     In Senegal the local cloth currency, pagne, made of tama, or strips, was increasingly supplemented by French imported indigo-dyed cloth from India called guinee . The guinee was used as currency in lower Senegal. In upper Senegal it became a larger unit equivalent to a number of pagnes. The exchange rate between guinee, pagnes, and francs became more complicated from the 1830s as a result of excessive imports of guinees and francs.

   • 1998, Judy Rosenthal, Possession, Ecstasy, and Law in Ewe Voodoo, →ISBN, page 204:

     If a woman wears her sister's pagne [cloth] to go and have sexual intercourse with a man, she has committed afodegbe. This happened to the wife of a sofo recently. She took her sister's pagne, went and stayed with her husband, and then took the pagne back to her sister. As her sister's husband [the husband of the woman who took the pagne] is a sofo, the vodu caught her sister [the woman whose pagne was taken] right away. She was ill.

   • 2011, Kris Holloway, Monique and the Mango Rains, →ISBN:

     When young girls are first learning how to wear a pagne, sometimes we sew straps onto the corners so the pagne can be tied and doesn't fall down if they don't wrap it right.

   • 2016, Nina Sylvanus, Patterns in Circulation: Cloth, Gender, and Materiality in West Africa, →ISBN, page 2:

     Pagne is part of the transfer of wealth from a prospective groom to his intended wife prior to marriage or the inheritance a woman leaves for her daughters.

Anagrams

• pegan

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /paɲ/
• Rhymes: -aɲ

Etymology 1

Borrowed from Spanish paño, from Latin pannus. Doublet of pan.

Noun

pagne m (plural pagnes)

1. loincloth
   • 2001, Hervé Beaumont, Égypte. Le guide des civilisations égyptiennes, des pharaons à l'islam;, Editions Marcus, 213.

     Statue en calcaire de Ranofrê portant la perruque et un pagne court, provenant du mastaba de Ti à Saqqara.

     Limestone statue of Ranofre wearing a wig and a short loincloth, originating from the mastaba of Ti at Saqqara.

2. grass skirt

Descendants

• → English: pagne

Etymology 2

From French panier.

Noun

pagne m (plural pagnes)

1. bed

Further reading

• “pagne”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.