jersey

The word “jersey” means a close-fitting knitted top, originally made of wool, worn on the upper body. In plain terms, a knitted top or sports shirt — or the soft, stretchy fabric it's made from.

“Jersey” is pronounced JUR-zee (/ˈd͡ʒɝzi/ in IPA).

Here is “jersey” used in a sentence: “She pulled on a warm jersey before heading out into the cold.”

“Jersey” is a noun.

“Jersey” is a fairly common word in modern English, usually learned at around the C1 level.

“Jersey” has 3 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: a close-fitting knitted top, originally made of wool, worn on the upper body.

The two overlap. A jersey is a knitted top worn on the upper body, and in British English it is often used interchangeably with jumper or sweater. Strictly, jersey can suggest a finer, closer-fitting knit, while sweater is the more general American word for any knitted pullover.

The word comes from the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands, once famous for its knitted woollen garments. The soft, stretchy machine-knitted cloth became known as jersey, and tops made from it, including team sports shirts, took the same name from the fabric.

In British English they are near-synonyms: both are knitted tops worn over the upper body. Jumper is the more common everyday word in the UK, while jersey can imply a closer-fitting or finer knit. In American English, sweater usually covers both of them.

Traditionally a jersey was knitted from wool, which gave both warmth and stretch. Today the same soft, slightly elastic knitted fabric, also called jersey, is made from cotton, synthetic fibres, or blends. That is why sports shirts and even T-shirt cloth are often described as jersey.