What's the difference between Khakis and Chinos?

[AmericanBanker]

This is something I've never been able to truly figure out. What is the difference between khakis and chinos?

 

[lwmarti]

Khaki is a color. "Khakis" are pants that have this color. Chino is a kind of fabric. "Chinos" are pants made from this fabric.

But I think that this distinction is unknown to so many people that the incorrect usage is getting as common as the correct usage.

Maybe I'm too uptight about these sorts of things, but when I hear someone talking about "navy khakis" I cringe.

 

[cptjeff]

Actually, Khakis are a type of pant, and the color was named after the pants. They originated in the British army, where they adopted cotton twill for the hot weather instead of the wool they traditionally wore. The word came from the Indian word for sand, which was the color they generally were- but they didn't just come in tan, they also were made in brown and olive. Pants made in all three colors were known as khakis. Tan became the dominant shade, and the word came to represent that particular shade of tan, but it retained its meaning as a pair of pants.

So yes, you can have a pair of gray or olive khakis, or a pair of khaki chinos. The english language is fun that way.

 

[lwmarti]

Do you have a reference for that more general interpretation of "khaki?" My Oxford English Dictionary limits the use of the word to a single color. So it seems to say that you can have, for example, khaki chinos but not navy khakis.

 

[cptjeff]

Not offhand, I'm going from memory here. Poking around a little, it may have been WWII when things got confused- GIs were quite definitely wearing olive pants and calling them khakis.