World Wide Words

From the Questions & Answers section

Mufti

Q From Chris Clifford, and also from Terry Yawn: Can you tell me the origin of the word mufti?

A This term for the off-duty civilian clothes of the military man, or these days anybody who usually wears some sort of uniform, was originally a joke among officers in the British Indian Army, and is first recorded early in the nineteenth century. It’s usually said to come from Mufti, the title of a Muslim legal expert who is empowered to give rulings on religious law. The story is told in Yule and Burnell’s Hobson-Jobson of 1886 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”. I assume that officers wore this garb while relaxing in the mess.