Mufti (dress)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For an article about an Islamic scholar, see Mufti.
Mufti, or civies/civvies (short for "civilian attire") [1], refers to ordinary clothes, especially when worn by one who normally wears, or has long worn, a military or other uniform.
Mufti Day, or civvies day, is an event at certain schools in which students are permitted to wear ordinary clothing, instead of the usual school uniform; it is also occasionally found in business environments. Mufti Day can also be known as 'Non-uniform day', which in turn is known by the acronym "NUFDY".
[edit] Origin
The word originates from the Middle East and is Arabic - mufti (مفتي) means an Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law (Sharia), and is the active form of the Arabic afta, meaning "to judge". It has been used by the British army since 1816 and is thought to derive from the vaguely Eastern style dressing gowns and tasseled caps worn by off-duty officers in the early 19th century. Yule and Burnell's Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive (1886) states that the word was "perhaps originally applied to the attire of dressing-gown, smoking-cap, and slippers, which was like the Oriental dress of the Mufti".[1] An alternative view is that MUFTI means Military Uniform For Tropical Inclines. Even in the 1950s department stores like Army And Navy or Gamages in London provided military uniforms and had "MUFTI" signs for tropical wear.
