tartan

Tartan is an unadapted borrowing from Scots tartan, from Old Scots tartane, probably from Old French tertaine/tiretaine, a cloth of wool mixed with cotton or linen. That word likely traces through tiret and tire back to Medieval Latin tyrium, meaning cloth dyed with Tyrian purple, ultimately from Tyrus, the Phoenician city of Tyre. An alternative theory instead links it to Middle English tartaryn, a rich cloth imported from the East by way of Tartary.

The word originally described a type of woven cloth, not a pattern, and only through its use in Scots became attached to the specific checked design we know today. The noun's meanings later branched to include a type of fishing fly and, in Northern Ireland, a slang term for a young gang member tied to support of Rangers Football Club.

Tiretaine, the probable French ancestor of tartan, was itself modeled on futaine, the source of English 'fustian,' another word for a woven cloth.