セーター

Meaning in English

sweater

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Dictionary

Word context

What it means

セーター (sētā) means a sweater: a knitted upper-body garment, typically with long sleeves, worn for warmth and style; it commonly appears as a pullover but also includes turtlenecks and light knit tops, made from wool, cotton, acrylic, or blends and used across casual and smart-casual wardrobes.

Main meanings

1) A pullover-style knit worn as outerwear or a mid-layer, emphasizing warmth and insulation rather than sport use.
2) A fashion category covering various cuts and necklines (crew, V-neck, turtleneck) rather than a single silhouette.
3) In everyday speech, sometimes used loosely for knitted tops that are not cardigans or sweatshirts, distinguishing knitwear from fleece or athletic wear.

How to use it

Used in everyday conversation, retail, and fashion contexts to refer to knit tops for cooler weather; appropriate across casual and smart-casual registers depending on style, found on clothing tags, shopping lists, weather-related remarks, and discussions of outfits, and commonly paired with shirts, coats, or skirts.

Variants and close terms

カーディガン (kādigan) — cardigan (buttoned or open-front knit)
ニット (nitto) — knit, knitwear (broader category including sweaters)
プルオーバー (puruōvā) — pullover (style-focused term)
スウェット (suwetto) — sweatshirt (athletic fleece-style top)

Etymology

セーター (sētā) is a katakana loan adapted from English sweater; consonant clusters were resolved by vowel insertion and the unstressed final English -er was rendered as a long vowel -ā, producing the characteristic Japanese phonotactic shape for the word.

Origin

The garment type entered Japan with Western clothing influences from the late 19th to early 20th centuries and became widespread during 20th-century industrialization and postwar fashion, when knitwear manufacturing and Western casual styles made sweaters a common seasonal staple.

Word class

noun (名詞)