メリヤス

Japanese

Alternative spellings
莫大小目利安

Etymology

Either borrowed from Spanish medias or from Portuguese meias.^[1]^[2]

Pronunciation

(Tokyo) メリヤス [mèríyású] (Heiban – [0])^[1]^[3]^[2]
IPA^(key): [me̞ɾʲija̠sɨ]

(Kyōto) メリヤス [méríyású] (Kōki – [0])^[2]

Noun

メリヤス or めりやす • (meriyasu)

[from 1681] knit fabric
- 1916, Kafū Nagai, Yōfukuron‎^[2]:
  
  日(に)本(ほん)人(じん)はメリヤスの肌(はだ)着(ぎ)をホワイトシャーツと同(おな)じもののやうに心(こころ)得(え)てゐるが如(ごと)くなれどこれ甚(はなはだ)しき誤(あやまり)なり。
  Nihonjin wa meriyasu no hadagi o howaito shātsu to onaji mono no yō ni kokoroete iru ga gotoku naredo kore hanahadashiki ayamari nari.
  Many Japanese people appear to think of knitted undershirts as the same thing as white shirts, but that is a gross misunderstanding.
[from 1753] meriyasu

Derived terms

メリヤス編(あ)み (meriyasuami, “stockinette stitch”)
メリヤス織(おり) (meriyasuori)
メリヤス機(き) (meriyasuki)
メリヤスシャツ (meriyasu shatsu)

References

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Matsumura, Akira, editor (2006), 大辞林 [Daijirin] (in Japanese), Third edition, Tokyo: Sanseidō, →ISBN
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 “メリヤス【莫大小・目利安】”, in 日本国語大辞典 [Nihon Kokugo Daijiten]‎^[1] (in Japanese), 2nd edition, Tokyo: Shogakukan, 2000-2002, released online 2007, →ISBN, concise edition entry available here
^ NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, editor (1998), NHK日本語発音アクセント辞典 [NHK Japanese Pronunciation Accent Dictionary] (in Japanese), Tokyo: NHK Publishing, Inc., →ISBN