T-shirt or tee-shirt: how is the word spelled in French?

T-shirt or tee-shirt: how is the word spelled in French?

In French, t-shirt can also be spelled T-shirt, tee-shirt or teeshirt: its four main spellings in dictionaries, the last one under the 1990 spelling reform. The Académie française chose tee-shirt. The word is masculine, takes an s in the plural and is pronounced "ticheurte". At tknp.io, we write t-shirt.

The key points:

• Tee-shirt is the only entry in the Dictionary of the Académie française; t-shirt or T-shirt appear in Le Robert, Larousse and the TLFi.
• Teeshirt, as one word, is accepted under the 1990 spelling reform, without making the hyphenated form wrong.
• The T comes from the shape of the garment: in English, tee spells out the name of that letter.

You are writing the order for the club's t-shirts, the message to the volunteers or the text to print on the back of the merch, and the doubt comes when you have to write the word itself: how is t-shirt spelled in French, exactly? Tee-shirt, T-shirt with a capital letter? Good news: French dictionaries leave you the choice. Here is what each one says, with the plural, the gender, the pronunciation and the origin of that famous T, and the spelling we use at tknp.io.

How is t-shirt spelled according to French dictionaries?

In French, the word t-shirt has four main spellings, all found in dictionaries: t-shirt, T-shirt, tee-shirt and teeshirt; the Wiktionnaire also lists ticheurte, very rare. None of the four is wrong, but each dictionary picks its own headword.

What does the Académie française say?

The Académie française, the body that watches over the French language, has tee-shirt as its only entry: the word has its entry in the 9th edition of its dictionary, which adds that it may also be written teeshirt. A search for t-shirt in that dictionary returns no entry. The TLFi, Larousse and Le Robert also give the spelling with the letter T.

T-shirt or tee-shirt: which one should you choose?

T-shirt and tee-shirt are two correct ways of writing the same word: tee is simply how English writes the name of the letter T. Pick the one you prefer, then keep it from one end of the document to the other. An order form that lists t-shirts in its title and tee-shirts in its table contains no spelling mistake, but it reads less smoothly.

Is teeshirt, as one word, correct?

Yes, teeshirt as one word is correct. The Dictionary of the Académie française states that tee-shirt "may be written teeshirt, according to the 1990 spelling reform". That reform, published in the French Official Journal on 6 December 1990, joins up compound words of foreign origin that are well established in everyday use, with cowboy and weekend as examples. The same text makes clear that "the forms currently in use will of course remain accepted": tee-shirt, with its hyphen, has not become a mistake.

Does T-shirt need a capital letter?

No, the capital in T-shirt is allowed but not required. Larousse writes T-shirt with a capital T, Le Robert writes t-shirt in lower case, and the TLFi quotes Fr. Dorin, Les Lits à une place (1980), which writes "les T-shirts" in the middle of a sentence. At the start of a sentence or a title, the word takes a capital like any other.

What are the plural, gender and pronunciation of t-shirt in French?

In French, t-shirt is a masculine noun and follows the ordinary plural rule, whichever spelling you choose.

• Gender: masculine in all four dictionaries. You say un t-shirt, un tee-shirt.
• Plural: the word agrees with an s at the end, des t-shirts, des tee-shirts, des teeshirts. The s is silent.
• Pronunciation: [tiʃœʀt] according to the TLFi, which the Académie writes "ticheurte". The tee sounds like the letter T in English.

Where does the word t-shirt come from?

The word t-shirt comes from American English: it puts together shirt and the letter T, because the shape of the garment recalls a T. In English, tee spells out the sound of that letter and is used to name T-shaped objects: t-shirt and tee-shirt are therefore one word, written two ways. The TLFi defines the garment as a "cotton jersey vest, originally collarless and short-sleeved, whose shape recalls that of a T", and Le Robert lists the word among anglicisms.

The TLFi dates the word to 1920 in American English, as T shirt. In French, it records a first use in 1950, tee-shirt, in L'Aurore-France libre, then T shirt in 1960 in Le Jardin des modes: in its records, the form tee-shirt comes ten years before T shirt.

Why does tknp.io write "t-shirt"?

At tknp.io, we write t-shirt, a spelling with two strengths: it appears in the dictionaries, as a variant in Le Robert and with a capital in Larousse; and it keeps in view the letter that gave the garment its name. It is the spelling in the address of our custom t-shirts page, in the site's search bar and in the articles of this blog. On the French version of that page, of the home page and of the site's FAQ, the word is written in lower case within sentences, and the capital only appears at the start of a title or a label, such as the "T-shirts" menu. Model names keep their brand's English spelling: Man Regular T-Shirt from JHK, Heavy Oversize Tee from Build Your Brand, Authentic Classic T from Russell.

When the word has to appear on the garment itself, for example a "T-shirt officiel" printed on the back, settle the spelling before the batch. On tknp.io, the proof (BAT) is approved online and shows up almost at once, without any back-and-forth by e-mail: use the time saved to reread the text letter by letter, because a personalised item does not qualify for the 14-day cancellation right (article L221-28, as our FAQ points out). The proofreading method is set out in our proof guide.

T-shirt, polo, tank top, crewneck: what is the difference?

In textile vocabulary, three words close to t-shirt name other tops.

• The polo is a "light knitted shirt with a turned-down collar" according to the TLFi: its collar sets it apart from the t-shirt, which was born without one. Collared models are on our custom polo shirts page.
• The tank top (débardeur in French) is a "low-cut sleeveless vest", again according to the TLFi.
• The crewneck: the Cambridge Dictionary writes crew neck, as two words, and defines it as a round neckline or the top that has one; for us, the crewneck is the round-neck sweatshirt, without a hood.

For the shape of the t-shirt itself, see the guide to cuts. For its weight, read our article on heavyweight t-shirts.