Textiles and fashion

The first word on this list is the most familiar one an English reader meets here, although it takes a moment to recognise. La stoffa reached Italian from Old French estoffe, the material something is furnished with, and the very same estoffe crossed the Channel as « stuff ». From one borrowing the two languages walked in opposite directions. English let the word swell until it covered everything and named nothing in particular: « the stuff in that drawer », « the stuff of dreams ». Its cloth sense narrowed to the point of quaintness: a shop today sells fabric or material, and « stuff » on a bolt sounds like a costume drama. Italian did the reverse and kept the word on the table where it started — una stoffa pesante, tagliare la stoffa — which is exactly the sense this page needs. One branch grew in both languages at once, and it is worth keeping: avere la stoffa is said of somebody who has it in them, and English says « the right stuff » for the identical idea. Neither language consulted the other: the cloth a person is cut from is the oldest metaphor in the trade.