A loose garment worn as nightwear or lingerie, often made from lightweight fabric.
In English, a negligee, also spelled negligée, is a woman’s dressing gown made of very thin cloth. The word comes from French: négligée, literally “given little thought or attention”, is the feminine past participle of négliger, to neglect. In French the noun is masculine, un négligé, and means a careless state of dress and, by extension, light, unstudied clothing usually worn in private, the sense English took. As an adjective, négligé still means careless or untidy.
A négligée is distinct from a chemise: the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defines the chemise as underwear or a nightdress, and the negligee as a dressing gown.
In job listings
Négligée is a product word rather than a job title. The roles that sell and develop it sit in lingerie: sales advisors in lingerie departments and in a house’s lingerie and swimwear category, and merchandisers for underwear lines. See current lingerie roles.
