handkerchief

The word kerchief is Old French couvrechef, assembled from couvrir (to cover) and chef (head). Norman scribes brought it to England after 1066, where it settled into Middle English as coverchief and then kerchief by the 1400s. The kerchief was a head-cloth worn by women, a simple square of linen draped over the hair. It had nothing to do with the hand.

By the 1500s, English speakers had started carrying small folded squares of linen in their hands or sleeves. These were distinct from head-kerchiefs in size and use, and speakers needed a word to mark the difference. The compound handkerchief appears in writing by the 1530s. Richard Mulcaster listed it in 1581, and the term fixed itself in the lexicon without difficulty.

The object had enormous social weight in the Renaissance. In 1604, Shakespeare made a handkerchief the hinge of an entire tragedy: Othello's jealousy pivots on a single embroidered cloth. Carrying an unsoiled handkerchief was a sign of cleanliness and breeding; dropping one was a recognized flirtation. The Victorians codified this language of fabric into elaborate etiquette.

The d in handkerchief has never quite made it into speech. The consonant cluster in the middle of the word compresses in natural pronunciation: the n shifts to an ng-sound before the k, and the d between them disappears. Samuel Johnson complained about this gap between the written form and the spoken one. The natural spoken form hankerchief has been standard for centuries, and the word shortened further to hanky, first recorded in 1895, resolving matters by abandoning the middle entirely.