Blouse
early 19th century (denoting a belted loose garment worn by peasants): from French, of unknown origin.
wiktionary
1828, from French blouse(“a workman's or peasant's smock”), see that for more.
More at blee, fold.
blouse (plural blouses)
etymonline
blouse (n.)
"light, loose upper garment of linen or cotton," 1828 (from 1822 as a French word in English), from French blouse, "workman's or peasant's smock" (1788), origin unknown. Perhaps akin to Provençal (lano) blouso "short (wool)" [Gamillscheg]. Another suggestion [Klein] is that it is from Medieval Latin pelusia, from Pelusium, a city in Upper Egypt, supposedly a clothing manufacturing center in the Middle Ages. At first a garment worn by French working-men as a protection from dust, etc., later adopted fashionably for women and children, not without objection:
In Paris, a very slovenly, loose, drawn frock, with most capacious sleeves, had been introduced called a blouse. Some of our priestesses of the toilet seemed emulous of copying this deshabille, with some slight alterations, but we never wish to see it on the symmetrical form of a British lady. ["Summary of Fashion for 1822," in Museum of Foreign Literature and Science, Jan.-June 1823]
