chaperon

A chaperon in medieval French was a hood or a hooded cloak—from chape, meaning 'cape,' which itself descends from Late Latin cappa. The hood protected the wearer's head from rain and cold. It was practical clothing, not symbolic. Chaucer mentions chaperons in The Canterbury Tales (1390s) as ordinary headwear.

The metaphorical leap happened in 18th-century France. A married woman who accompanied a younger, unmarried woman in public was called a chaperon—she 'covered' the girl's reputation the way a hood covers a head. The metaphor was explicit: without the chaperon, the young woman was exposed to social danger.

English adopted the social meaning around 1720. Jane Austen's novels are full of chaperonage—Mrs. Jennings in Sense and Sensibility (1811), Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice (1813). The rules were strict: an unmarried woman seen in public without a chaperon was compromised, her reputation damaged beyond repair.

The practice of formal chaperonage declined after World War I, but the word survived. Modern chaperones are parent volunteers at school dances, museum trip supervisors, adult presences at youth events. The hood metaphor is invisible now, but the function remains: someone is covering for someone who cannot cover themselves.