Overall
An
overall is a type of
garment which usually used as protective clothing when working, but they have sometimes been items of
fashion, especially in the
1990s. Some people call an overall a "pair of overalls" by analogy with "pair of trousers".
The word "overall" is also an
adjective meaning "above everything".
There are two sorts of protective garment called an
overall.
Bib-and-brace
These are trousers with an attached front patch covering the chest and with attached
braces (or suspenders in the US) which go over the shoulders. Some people use the word "overall" for this garment only and not for a boilersuit. In
British English such a garment is usually referred to as a pair of
dungarees.
Bib overalls are generally made of blue
denim and often have riveted pockets, similar to those on
blue jeans. Bib overalls have long been associated with rural men in the U.S. South and Midwest, especially farmers and
railroad workers. They are often worn with
long johns or a red
union suit underneath, or with a
T-shirt or no shirt at all in warmer weather. Since the
1960s, different colors and patterns of bib overalls have been increasingly worn by young people of both sexes, often with one of the straps worn loose or unfastened along the side and under the arm.
Etymology of "dungaree"
The term "dungaree" was associated with a coarse undyed
calico fabric that was produced and sold in a region near
Dongari Killa (also called Fort George) in
Bombay (now
Mumbai) in
India. The cloth was cheap and often poorly woven. As such, it was used by the poorer classes for clothing and by various navies as a
sail cloth. Sailors often re-used old sails to make clothes. In time, the name of the cloth came to also mean an item of clothing made out of it. See [
1] and
this link.
Boilersuit
This is sometimes called a
coverall. In American English, it is nearly always referred to as "coveralls". It is a
one-piece garment with full-length sleeves and legs like a
jumpsuit, but usually less tight-fitting. It is often worn as protective clothing over "street" clothes at work, but sometimes is worn directly over shirt and underclothes. Its main feature is that it has no gap between jacket and trousers or between
lapels, and no loose jacket tails. It often has a long thin pocket down the outside of the right thigh to hold long tools. It usually has a front fastening extending the whole length of the front of the body up to the throat, with no
lapels. This fastening can be:
*
Buttons.
* A
zipper.
*
Velcro, as nowadays in the
British Royal Air Force (RAF).
*
Snap fasteners or press-studs.
Boilersuits with an attached
hood are available.
They are often issued by factories to their workmen, with the firm's badge on.
The
French police unit called
CRS use boilersuits as
uniforms.
A dark blue coverall is the current working uniform of the
U.S. Navy, with the owner's name and "U.S. Navy" on the chest, and
rank insignia on the
collar points.
Similar coveralls in
olive drab (and more recently,
desert tan) are also used by the crews of
armored fighting vehicles in the
US Army and
Marine Corps, where they are sometimes referred to as "
CVCs", an abbreviation of the term
Combat Vehicle Crewman.
In the British Army, male Officers'
mess dress in most regiments includes a pair of very tight wool trousers which extend above the waist and are worn with
braces. These are properly known as "overalls". Essentially all regular officers have their mess dress tailored for them, along with their other formal uniform (the
Sandhurst timetable includes time for this, and an allowance is paid for the cost) but putting the overalls on for the first few times can still sometimes be difficult. Stories are told of officers being fitted into their trousers by two friends lifting them into the air by the waistband and bouncing, though in truth this is rare and more likely the result of weight gain some years after finishing training (most military tailors allow plenty of room to "let out" clothing over the years). Certainly it may be difficult to bend over in a new pair of overalls, but the wool soon stretches and becomes more comfortable.
