Armscye
Encyclopedia
In sewing
Sewing
Sewing is the craft of fastening or attaching objects using stitches made with a needle and thread. Sewing is one of the oldest of the textile arts, arising in the Paleolithic era...

, the armscye is the armhole, the fabric edge to which the sleeve is sewn. The length of the armscye is the total length of this edge; the width is the distance across the hole at the widest point.

While the expression "arm's eye" was used in older sewing texts (e.g. Gynametry by M. V. Coleman, published in 1887 by Byrd & Pattillo) it appears that in poor prints the apostrophe and the crossbar of the lower case "e" were indistinct. The neologism "armscye" was created by readers who concatenated the orphaned fragments "arm" and "s" with the corrupt "cye".

Until the beginning of the 20th century informed writers favoured the original term or at least a more logical variation (e.g. "armeye" in The Perfect Dressmaking System by Ella A. Bennett, published in 1914). However, as self-proclaimed experts copied each other, the term "armscye" eventually became widely enough used by home sewers to gain general acceptance.

Further reading

  • Dolman
    Dolman
    A Dolman Originally, the term referred to a long and loose garment with narrow sleeves and an opening in the front. It was worn generally by the Turks, and is not unlike a cassock in shape.-Military dolman:...

    — Wilson discusses the sizes and shapes of armscyes.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK