Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A printed cloth garment resembling a skirt or kilt, worn as the principle garment by both men and women in Polynesia, especialy in Samoa; called also pareu.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An everyday item of clothing traditionally worn by Polynesians and other Oceanic peoples, consisting of a single rectangular cloth worn as a skirt, secured around the waist by an overhand knotting of the upper corners.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a skirt consisting of a rectangle of calico or printed cotton; worn by Polynesians (especially Samoans)

Etymologies

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Examples

  • It was also why so many women wore modest ankle-length skirts and why men wore knee-length ones -- the traditional garments called lavalava -- and why tourists weren't supposed to wear shorts and swimsuits anywhere off the beach.

    StarTribune.com rss feed 2011

  • The weird figure of Faauma is in the room washing my windows, in a black lavalava (kilt) with a red handkerchief hanging from round her neck between her breasts; not another stitch; her hair close cropped and oiled; when she first came here she was an angelic little stripling, but she is now in full flower — or half-flower — and grows buxom.

    Vailima Letters 2005

  • Femme tatouee de Falalap, Ouest Carolines 1935 accurately depicts tattoos, shells, Ulithian lavalava patterns, and even windswept hair, but the face is right off the kabuki stage.

    Karhu and Jacoulet – Foreign Japanese Woodblock Print Artists « Far Outliers 2004

  • He was dressed in a dark coat and _lavalava_ and white shirt, and looked very swagger indeed.

    The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez 1895

  • And then how they marched up here, every man in a new black lavalava, some forty strong, to decorate the grave?

    The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez 1895

  • The Samoan lavalava is a wraparound "skirt" worn by Polynesian men and hardly a girlish trend.

    The Independent Home RSS 2009

  • The Samoan lavalava is a wraparound "skirt" worn by Polynesian men and hardly a girlish trend.

    unknown title 2009

  • "The clothing worn by the men and woman was nothing but the 'lavalava,'

    The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition Fay-Cooper Cole 1921

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  • It just flows?

    August 29, 2014