pith helmet

noun

1. a hat made of dried pith or cork covered with cloth, worn in the tropics.

pith helmet

noun

1. Also called: topee.  topi. a lightweight hat made of pith that protects the wearer from the sun

Word History and Origins

Origin of pith helmet¹

First recorded in 1855–60

Example Sentences

It also speaks to her love of hats, which has sometimes got her in trouble – for example her widely criticised colonial-style pith helmet on safari in Kenya.

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In Belize, I once wrote about a hotel on a private island where I was greeted on a boat dock by smiling staff members all decked out in matching pith helmets — so colonial!

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You can’t get up when that happens, so a stage manager in a pith helmet would come and drag them off.

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In the show we find him turning the design for a divination board into a tea tray, and carving a portrait of a British official dressed in conspicuously snazzy Yoruba slippers and a pith helmet.

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The whole genre has at least some of its origins in 19th century gentleman explorers in pith helmets gawking at Indigenous people.

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