Many definitions have been given to this simple word: shirt. Some of them are more complex whereas others are so evasive that you could even mistake a pair of pants for a shirt. You can call a shirt whatever you like because in the end nobody cares that much about the name you give it but for the shirt itself.

Of course it is preferable that you do not confuse a t-shirt for example for a shirt, but the way words have shifted their meaning these days I would not wonder if you did. Actually nobody uses the word shirt anymore for what it really means and the general definition of shirt is now a piece of garment used to cover the upper part of our bodies that is not a bras or a coat. You probably use the word shirt for anything you wear besides a coat or a bra so you do not really understand what I am talking about. The fact is that there are many those who actually know what the word shirt really meant.

A shirt is indeed a piece of clothing used to cover the upper part of our bodies but it necessarily had to have a collar, it had to have cuffs and to be opened vertically by buttons. This is the true definition of shirt. However, because people got more and more tired of naming different things different names, they started to name shirt almost all pieces of clothing that you wear. Well, the good thing about it is that now there is less confusion because everything is called a shirt, so you do not have to worry about naming a piece of clothing wrong.

However, another problem occurred. Not all pieces of clothing you used to cover up the upper part of your body could be called shirts because then by trying to avoid one type of confusion you would have created another. To make a difference between different types of shirts words have been placed in front of the word shirt to show what that piece of clothing was used for. T-shirts, polo shirts, tennis shirts and all sorts of shirts were born this way. The list is long and I have a feeling that is going to get even bigger as time passes by and more and more shirts appear.

It is only natural for things to change as time passes by and there is no wonder that words have started to change their meanings as well. The most important thing is that there are still lots of shirts for people to wear.