watchetn.adj.

Etymology: Apparently < Old French (north-eastern) wachet, occurring a.d. 1420 (une heuke..foree de wachet, a cloak lined with ‘watchet’; it is not clear whether this means a particular fabric or a colour); an earlier instance, spelt waschet , occurs in quot. 1198-9 at sense A. 1a below; the use of the Old French word in an Anglo-Latin context at that date does not prove that it had already been adopted into English. It is possible that waschet, wachet may be a diminutive of the word which is found once (spelt wasce) in a Douay document of 1262; Godefroy explains this as ‘sorte d'étoffe’, but the interpretation is not certain from the context. The Central Old French gasche, recorded once (1448), for some kind of appendage or ornament of a shoe, would correspond formally, but if Godefroy is right in rendering it ‘buckle’ the connection is out of the question. It is tempting to compare modern Walloon waiss royal blue (which Diez would connect with Old French guesde woad n.¹); a diminutive formation on a word of this meaning might have been used to denote a lighter shade of the colour. But the phonological possibility of such a derivation of wachet is very doubtful.