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« Joining the "conversate" conversation | Main | The uncertain future of dictionaries » January/February Word Fugitive09 Jan 2009 12:34 pm
Carolyn Haggis, of Oxford, England, writes, "I'm looking for a word for the items of clothing which sit perched on a chair in my bedroom, waiting to be reworn. They are not yet ready for the laundry bin (since I plan to rewear them), but they are no longer suitable for the wardrobe (which I reserve for clean clothes). I assume others keep their lightly worn clothes in a similar purgatory?"
Comments (164)
To add to Katy's comment, "clothes mountain" grew out of my boyfriend's unwillingness to accept the use of our bedroom chair as a wardrobe fixture, a necessary holding place for my clean, but not freshly washed, clothes. He sees it as closet limbo, and calls me "crazy woman-head" when I insist clothes on the chair are put away. 
Joanie is the coworker I referenced in my initial comment, fyi.
Hello, Why not expropriate the word Carolyn used, i.e., "purgatory," and make up a synthetic vocable, "purgaclothe""
limbotogs
wearables (versus washables)
(-: There's a perfectly good word for that already. Those clothes are "airing out." They'll be fine and ready to wear the next morning. However, if you let them accumulate until the bottom ones are wrinkled and nasty, I think you've got a bad case of clutterfuck. (-: This happens in my house with paperwork, books and yes, clothes too.
Could say it's "my worndrobe"
In the limbo between hanger and hamper, clothes might be described as "postworn", or "prehamper". But a suitable noun might be "purgattire", or perhaps "outedwear", to describe clothes that came out of the closet, but cannot go back in.
A slight variation on worndrobe would be wornrobe.
How about "chaise loungewear?"
An old roommate and I used the term "worndrobe" to refer to the corner of the room containing the chair, table and exercise equipment that became the temporary home of those garments rather than the clothes themselves. And yeah, those clothes are, in fact, "wearables" that are "airing out".
Ciufi Galeazzi: I would admit that term (actually a revision thereof) only for chaise longueunderwear.
yonderwear wuzcleans floordrobe (heaps of clothes on the floor) interwear
Our family uses the term "laundratory" to refer to the place where recently worn clothes are piled while awaiting a decision to be worn again or to go to the hamper and full laundry. Although this term implies an anguished existence for the clothes in this state, my wife assures me that the torture is all hers.
A few years ago I read an article about this very topic--I can't remember where--in which the person referred to such clothing as "resting." That's what I call that pile now--my resting clothes.
Why not "bwornagain," pronounced: Be-WORN-again, or bwornagain with its "bw" spoken as the "bw" that begins "bwana"? After all, when one has the intent to again wear pre-worn clothes, the intention does include an element of faith, in that one hopes that pre-worn clothing will still smell fresh enough to bwornagain.
Oh, those trousers draped over the chair? The skirt and sweater slung across the bottom of the bed? Regarbables, every one.
My suggestion for clothing between pristine and the depths of the dirty clothes hamper is "Limbowear"
Perhaps that's "yesterwear" on my rocking chair?
Jordynne Olivia Lobo: FYI there's an ABBA tribute band called "Björn Again."
My to-wear-again pile looks like a "wore zone" to me....
With apologies to the Divine Miss M, those clothes are Sweat Middlers!
That the words will either be puns or portmanteaus seems to have been tacitly agreed upon. How did this develop? Discuss.
The once and future kit.
Unlaundered clothing available for re-use = underworns.
Clothes draped over the back of a chair for another wearing might be called "launderwear." And the furniture itself is obviously a "laun chair."
How about the "not ready for grimetime players."
Zooey: I think the pun/portmanteau axis dominates because the alternatives are more difficult in conception or interpretation or both. Coming up with a brand new unambiguously applicable word ex nihilo is extremely challenging. Something onomatopoeic is probably easier, but still not as easy as a pun or portmanteau.
More puns: Re-in-vestment or Lingarments
If the clothes are neither dirty nor clean, I'd suggest they are Clothes Encountered of the Third Kind. My wife suggests, more prosaically, that I just put them back in the [profanity] closet.
Sounds like what you've got is an intendo way station.
For those clothes laying and hanging around which are not dirty enough to wash, particularly if you're not going anywhere special,how about "garbiage".
Such a pile of clothes would "not be ready for grime time."
As my hypothetical Uncle Judd used to say, "Why, I only wore that shirt for a day. It aint clean and it aint dirty. Its aint. That pile of clothes over there on the chair could be called an aint-hill." (Uncle Judd didnt have much use for apostrophes, but italics were OK.) =Lawrence Johnson
I personally like to call this set of clothing 'sitting getup'. Antonio Paola
Since these items are not ready for the laundry yet, I would refer to them as the "inbecleans."
The items could be described as "transortarial". Wayne Otto
How about the "Chair of re-wear"?
In our household clothing in that unfortunate state of limbo collects *on top of* the laundry basket until someone (that would be me) makes an executive decision about its status. I refer to these items as "rethreads" or "underwornwear."
In keeping with the purgatory theme I sugest that these clothes be granted a cleaneary indulgence defined as an extra-clothatory remission for the temporary ostracism from the hamper due to lack of dirt.
I think that the word for these clothes in purgatory should be "semi-reattired". They are definitely "out of the fold" and "unhampered". Tom Tressel (semi-retired)
Wait a minute: You people re-wear clothes that aren't clean????
The English language already has a perfectly suitable, though currently disused, word for clothing laid on chairs, beds, floor, dresser, anywhere in the bedroom; Ms Haggis' desire simply needs to be appended to the word in future dictionaries (assuming dictionaries exist in the future). Her lightly worn attire was "chamberlain." One must be careful to use the term properly, i.e. the passive voice of the past participle of "lie," or the typical heartache surrounding the proper uses of "lie" and "lay" will ensue. The term will inevitably become a noun, of course, as in "Honey, smell my blue chamberlain and tell me if I can wear it tonight." "Chamberlaid" could be created as yet another suitable portmanteau, but the probability of puerile sniggering is quite high.
My apologies if multiple submissions are inappropriate, but it occurs to me that the perfection of "chamberlain" may be a bit too sophisticated for the hoi-polloi, thus I also offer, with apologies to Edward Bulwer-Lytton (nah, I had no idea, had to google who coined the term), "great unwashed."
How about "transpants"? I want something that captures that they're transitioning from clean to dirty so I need the trans- prefix. Combine that with their relocation from the closet to the chair and *ta-da!* Problem is it seems a bit limited in its referential scope (...can it refer to shirts? undies?) But it's fun to say... "Hey keep your hands off my transpants!" If that's no good, how about "pressed? no. change? no." It answers both the questions of (1) its level of cleanliness and (2) whether you want its level of cleanliness to change.
not quites
laundry-in-waiting? I must admit I love "purgattire" above @ Joe Yee. Karen Baumer
I am an Industrial Design student at the University of Houston the the great big state of Texas!! i am starting this new year doing my senior project on the very issue and i am pleased to say these articles of clothing that don't have a "home" are called "clothing in limbo". my idea is to design a solution for this problem: this clothing doesn't belong in the dirty clothes pile and it doesn't belong with the clean clothes in the closet or dresser. These articles of clothing need a home too. CLOTHING IN LIMBO a solution coming to a store near you....
"Chamberlain" as an adjective, as per Mark Goodrich, is new to me but seems, erm, spot-on. Since the Word Fugitive posts always generate the most responses I feel obligated to contribute another: My first suggestion was a compound word and I still prefer it, but I'm lightly soiled by the pun proliferation and now offer mussedti.
rewearables Jeff Fair
wardoublers- clothes placed on the chair back to be worn again in order to extend the life of the weekly wardrobe. Terri Bradley
Growing up the son of a tailor-cleaner shop owner means that I never developed a healthy respect for wrinkles. So the chair full of "gently-used' clothing is a common sight in my life. How about calling this phenomenon "the Garb Heap"--?
The first word that came to mind was the same as noted above by Joe Lee --- purgattire.
Two suggestions; Calvin Rekleiners or off again, don agains
When I was working full time, I sometimes carefully layered my sets of clothing (Doubleduds) one atop the other. Then at week's end, I flipped the entire stack and started from the top again (the bottom becoming the top, of course). Not complicated, and a hand-held steamer took care of wrinkles.
Recycle bin? The trick is always to take clothing from the bottom of the pile because that is where one might find a worn-only-once garment. The closer to the top of the pile, the more suspect the garment's lineage. Note: this is/was my sister's system not mine!
My dear woman, your whiffrippery is in a state of roblivion.
How about a simple but elegant term such as "chairwear"? Academy Village
I love my foreworns. My wife is less enthusiatic.
Since most of these items of clothing end up slipping off the pile on the chair, how about calling them a flooredrobe?
Perhaps the clothes--in limbo between clean and dirty--are in "detergatory"?
These common items should be known as "rerobes".
In the fashion world, I guess these would be called "prêt-à-reporter".
Based on your fickleness regarding what to do with your attire, I say it's considered a "clothes call" either way you go.
I like slight modification of Peter Frank's suggestion: doff & dons.
How about redress? I also liked worndrobe above.
It seems to me that what Ms. Haggis refers to is her "transient trousseau" -- which, by another name implying those clothes that hang about where they don't belong, being neither clean nor dirty, might be "milloitery." For simplicity's sake, if such clothes are to be worn again, they might also be referred to as "reduddance."
Ms Haggis nearly provides us the name herself; it's a "purgatorium," or "sartorial purgatorium" if you have purgatoria directed to other uses in your house. I myself, being an amateur woodworker, constructed just such a purgatorium for myself, a small wardrobe with fittings to hold all manner of clothes. If Ms. Haggis, however, chooses to store her slightly soiled clothes in some sort of drawstring-closed purgatory vessel made of cloth, it could be termed a "Haggis bag" (which is not the same as a haggis bag).
We have several such piles of clothes in our bedroom and my wife and I both enjoyed Ms. Haggis' query. But it wasn't until last night that I began to ponder a reply. I have enjoyed all of the responses I have read here. I especially like the formal "chamberlain", but that seems a bit too Victorian for our less than Victorian culture. The overall problem is just how "worn" an item is. I get a pile going of mostly seatshirts or insulating layers (never underwear or socks!). I'll use this and that, and then suddenly get amnesia as to when I started the whole thing. So, I toss the pile into the laundry hamper. I had a stream of thought on the matter. Here's a few that rolled out: "Interwear" or, for all seasons, "seasoned wear". Then there's simply "midwear". But these terms seem a bit trite, so I coined "launhold" as in, "This shirt is launhold." And that is my final answer. Jesse Wilson
My word is "stillwear." It sums up the way clothes lounge about and my thoughts when I see them there. I could still wear those.
These clothes do not get put back into the closet or bureau; they form the "siderobe." These "leftrobers" are also "wearobers." Margaret Swanson
I've always called them my semi-dirty clothes. When I blogged about how to handle such clothes, one of my commenters used the phrase "purgatorial clothing." But I love the many clever replies included here.
My wife is constantly upset by my "tossed and foreworn" attire!
How about - encore clothes. They'll be back for an encore.
Clearly, Ms. Haggis is suffering from the sartorial equivalent of Thanksgiving dinner detritus, i.e., "dressed-overs." Cheers,
Dear Carolyn, Break a leg! Kind Regards,
Our term for such is "half-worn."
I suggest the term "Chairedwearables," which is the apparel equivalent to a "tabled motion."
Three words come to mind....rethreads, rethreadables, underworns. Charles Heiberg
"Outerwary"--if it's a bit disreputable. Mindy Keskinen
"Chaiseloungers" for garments that are simply hanging around rather than hanging up.
Could we say such clothing is "seeking redress?" Joe Cole
These are Ms. Haggis' watch 'n' wear clothes.
I would say that those clothes have clearly been placed, not in her wardrobe, but in her woredrobe.
It's your wornrobe.
Intervestments
Monday morning "dresscision".......Should I wear these light or the dark colored slacks today? Will they be "reclothable" on Thursday since I have 10 cats?
I think if you live in Malaysia they are " sarongs awaiting redress"
'Limindry': adapted from 'limen', the Latin for doorway (hence liminal figures and subliminal messages). Also for the location of my own 'half-way laundry' chair--on the way to the laundry room, but not quite there. 'Limendry' is an acceptable variant, but not preferred, on grounds of strict Latinity. Jonathan Perry
there's already a word for this - hookers. They've been on you, they're slightly dirty, and they're just waiting around to be picked up and used again
Outlayers- not to be confused with outliers. Charlotte, NC
Various women over the years, starting with my mom, have made themselves clotheshoarse trying to break me of this habit!
What to call clothes that are worn once and set aside, hoping to be worn again? Clearly, these items aspire to be like our 22nd/24th president, so let's call them Clother Clevelands.
If the clothes are in brief storage for eventual reuse, then clearly they are "temporwear."
Such garmets remain clothes at hand, as they are not soiled but merely wear-y.
Certain items are more prone to reuse then others, I call them defergents.
For the last 18 years of marriage, my husband has referred to those clothes as my "clirty" pile. You know, half-clean plus half-dirty equals "clirty."
I agree that "worndrobe" is the most appropriate word for those wearble, lightly worn clothes awaiting washing or dry-cleaning, except in the extreme case when those clothes await a court summons, in which they are "the Smoking Duds." See Monica Lewinsky.
This week's word quest struck a resonant chord at my house. I could not decide between two options and hope that it's not against the rules to offer them both. "Laundry hampering" offers a play on words. However, "Clothes encounters of a third time" met with more resounding approval.
I am so glad to know I am not alone in this predicament. In my bedroom, there is a space on top of my cedar chest known as purgatoggery.
How about middlewear?
2wear or not 2wear? That is the question.
purgattire is clearly a winner. My thought process started with laundrobe and chairable wearables (wearables is already in the dictionary though my spellchecker doesn't agree)--followed by rewearables, of course, but if we speak of attire-- wouldn't retire be appropriate?
How about "halfway hose"? (OK, so technically I'm stuck in between coming up with a word for where semi-dirty clothes go and coming up with a word for the clothes themselves, but who wants to get caught up in such discussions when a pun is at stake?)
My wife calls clothes that are to be reworn "the shadies." I call them the "greylines." If you are an amateur radio operator, you will recognize the significance of greyline. It is the area around the globe between darkness and daylight. Amateur radio operators learned long ago that the ionosphere in the greyline zone (i.e., right at local sunrise or sunset) has enhanced long distance communications properties to other parts of the world. Radio signals on certain frequencies literally pop out of the noise and become quite strong for a few minutes between two points that are both in or very near the greyline.
I raise Dana NYC one slight notch to "wearagainables". This may not be the most witty and erudite submission, but it is a phrase one might actually utter in real life.
Repeatertoire
I begin with an apology to my son Jordan who has been leaving what I thought were dirty clothes in various mounds around the house for many years. I am sorry for accusing you of being a slob. I hoped that when you went to college you would change. How disappointed I was to find upon our first visit that your clothes were mounded in front of the bunk bed where not only you but your roomate had to step on or around them. Finally I asked "Why, when the clothes hamper is within reach?" I apologize for accusing you of making up a lame excuse when you explained that these clothes were "tweenercloths" and therefor not clean enough to be in the company of freshly laundered items in the closet but not yet dirty enough to have earned the status of laundry. I see now they were "limbowear", and you are among the proud few who share this system. In honor of the texting generation that founded this concept I also suggest we could call them 2cle4laun (too clean for laundry)and 2dir4close (too dirty for closet). With deep apologies - Mom P.S. When the piles get really big we could call them "Himalayers"
My husband calls these items "Leaners." Sometimes he leans toward re-hanging these items in the closet---but why bother he might wear them again soon---and other times he leans toward putting them in the laundry, but the possibility of wearing them again gives him pause. During this period of indecision, which can take many many days, there they remain, as leaners.
How about referring to these clothes as either "laundry-hampered" or "fashion throw pas"? Tom Mitchell
I would refer to the clothes as my "Prêt-à-Porter collection" for they are nothing if not ready-to-wear. Chris Farling
The word Carolyn is looking for is "redoduds."
Following up on Jordynne's suggestion above of "bwornagain" , I suggest b-wear .
How about "wearabouts"? Kind of like a cross between whereabouts and lie abouts.
"inbeclean" is funny.
Since these clothes are already out ahead of their clean counterparts, yet not consigned to the laundry bin of history, we should call them the Avant Garb.
I'd call the clothes pre-suds duds.
Glad to know I'm not the only one living with this situation, although as a male I may be in the minority. I attribute my pile of neither-clean-nor-dirty clothing to several factors - an admirable desire (that's how I see it, anyway) to not bombard my wife with additional laundry (we have 2 small boys and a small washer/dryer combo); a fear that excessive laundering will shrink and/or ruin my clothing; environmental concerns; inadequate closet space to put items back on a hanger (I am a clotheshorse [clotheswhore?] who lives beyond my storage means); and sheer sloth. Having said all that, I used to refer to the pile as simple "the pile". But the article got me thinking (time which could have been better spent putting the clothing away) and I've coined two potential words: "Apparelimbo", which has a vague Eurotrash sound to it (limbo seems to be a recurring theme here), and "The 'Taint", as in "it 'taint clean and it 'taint dirty". I do like "Avant Garb", however.
Carolyn Haggis and I are guilty of the same and my wife always asks regarding the status of such clothes? I’m not sure. They are waiting for a final verdict usually after a week on the chair or the spare bed. I’ve told her they were in “purgastorage”, so maybe we could call them “purgastored”.
"stinkubator" - incubator for the clothes not yet stinky and in need of a little ripening.
In olde Shakespearian tymes they were "Weeds-in-Waiting" that sat on the "Thrown Throne" but later terms have included "Clutterclothes" and/or Kastoffkleider (for the German immigrants)that either sat on the "Chair to Nowear" or the American style "Chaise Scrounge". Currently I refer to the pile of clothing in stasis as my "Umvestments"!
Whether referring to her clothes or her actions, one word covers it all......HABITS.
halfway blouse
Such clothes are simply "pileaundering": they wink at you, try to convince you to wear them, but it is up to you if you want to take them or discard them. In the end, however, they are always thrown in the wash. For this reason, I prefer the spelling "au" over the spelling with a simple "a". The noun "pileaundry", however, sounds a bit harsh...
Since these clothes are subjected to multiple wear without a wash just like pajamas are but mainly during the day time; they can be called dayjamas.
Those clothes that are piled up, not quite clean, but not quite dirty, just waiting to be worn again.. they are in a state of "garmentstasis". 'Clothes' -garment in a state of 'inactivity resulting from a static balance between opposing forces' -statis
How about "uncloseted clothes"? These are items freed from the closet but not yet banished to the laundry.
tarry cloths (a take on terry cloth)
Clever suggestions, all, but these clothing items are known by a term as simple and unpretentious as the items themselves: "rewears." They are, after all, waiting to be reworn... I do think "inbecleans" has potential. Sorry, Joe Yee and others, but to me "purgattire" doesn't work because these are the clothes we gladly go back to (that's why we can't bear to be separated from them by the laundry cycle interval).
rethreads
Buddhists use the term "bardo" for the place/space/time in between one lifetime and the next, so how about fashion-bardo or bardo-garb?
While I thought of recyclables, and wear-again clothes, they are obviously the pre-wash.
Passartorial - as in clothing that will pass?
Re-threads
How about "transvestsite" as a repository for these in-between clothes? Diantha Robinson, Bremen, ME
Word Fugitive always reminds me that I'm actually part of the human race. How many times has me left hand tried to 'crtl-F' a book I was reading, to quickly find a previous section that i wanted to re-read? Wonderful Stuff!! As for that pile of clothes on the unusable armchair in my bedroom, I wonder EACH and every single day, 'What do NORMAL people do with half-worn clothes?' Do 'the rich' have separate closets for such things? Or, like my parents who have never used a towel twice without washing it, do most people simply wash everything they have ever worn? The techy in me wants to call them 'middle-wear'
Carolyn's garments are in a state of re-habillé ?
This is a matter of endless debate between my wife and I. She asserts that such a half-way house should not exist, but I strongly defend the importance of a place for "part-dirty clothes", which is what my mother always called the clothes I hung on a hook because they weren't dirty enough to wash and dry.
In response to the search for a word to describe clothing waiting to be reworn, I looked at the chair in our bedroom where our clothes, male and female, were draped over the chair waiting for their next wearing and the words garments interuptus came to mind
I think Carolyn has reached the age of "reatirement"
Sweet answers so far. My brain dumped the following: Limbothreads (limbo seems to be a popular name)
No time to read all the imaginative suggestions, but here are mine: I do like Alex Clayton's 'limbothreads' - very catchy!
The UbanDictionary www.urbandictionary.com defines the terms 'chairdrobe' and 'floordrobe' Perhaps these items could therefore be referred to as
Please feel free to use my full name with my post of 1/25 that begins with an apology to my son Jordan. Anne Perschel,Psy.D.
For that pile of worn clothes on a chair? "Cloathes"
Ah yes. That is Laundergatory.
Two suggestions: Bob Shoemaker
I do not have a just a single word but from experience I know that each morning the pile begins "a long day's journey into might." Jon Mathias
Clothes in limbo like this could be:
I suggest in-use-ables. Sebastian Pabst
You could call the chair itself a "halfway hamper." As for the clothes, I'm trying to come up with some blend of "sartorial" and "purgatory," but I'm still not getting anything snappy.
The apparel could be said to be on apparole thus making it an apparolee.
We have for years called these stacks of re-wearables 'clirties'...not truly clean, just a bit dirty.
When found on the back or arms of a sofa or chair, these clothes are antimacastaways or perhaps antimacastoffs. On the bed they are simply bed clothes.
such items of clothing are 'FRELTHY' ... just between FRESH and FILTHY
I have so many lightly worn clothes in one corner of my bedroom that I have nicknamed this zone "The Garment District." However, a more fitting name might be the "laundry camper" because the word "camp" implies a temporary location. And then there is the French-sounding "armworn," a pun of the word "armoire."
My friends and I refer to this as a chairdrobe. We even have an 'I love my chairdrobe' group on Facebook for anyone who's interested. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=52367541921
This collection of clothing is surely "secondweary" to the freshly washed. Mark Lebar
I've always referred to my stack as "wear-agains," or, as a single word, "wearigans."
Onagain/offagains for those who have unstable relationships with their clothes
Imagine your house as a giant department store and that pile of gently-worn clothing as the Ready-to-Rewear Department.
After reading the Barbara Wallraff's article in the Atlantic, I have an idea for Carolyn Haggis' request. The topic of clothing waiting to be reworn has come up frequently over the years in our household and we coined the word "Humple" (a cross between a hump + pile) to describe slightly worn clothing perched on a chair in the bedroom.
I'd call it "chairity clothing."
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My coworker and I call the resulting structure "clothes mountain." Sometimes it can be a whole mountain range.
Katy Aronoff
Somerville, MA
Posted by Katy | January 9, 2009 4:11 PM