Also 7 bernou, -noo, -nooe, 9 ber-, bornous(e, boornoos, bournous, burnoos(e. [a. F. burnous, a. Arab. burnus. On account of the final -s, the word has often been treated in Eng. as a plural.]
1. A mantle or cloak with a hood, an upper garment extensively worn by Arabs and Moors.
1695. Motteux, St. Olon’s Morocco, 81. The black Caps and Bernous they are oblig’d to wear. Ibid., 91. A Bernooe, or kind of Stuff or Cloath Cloak, edg’d with a Fringe, whence there hangs a kind of a Cowle behind with a Tuft at the end on’t. Ibid., 92. The Alcaydes … have a Bernoo of Scarlet, or black Cloth, without a Cowle. Ibid., 93. The King’s Blacks are seldom seen to wear Bernoos.
1811. Ann. Reg., 568/1. A cloak, or Bernouse as it is called.
1832. Lander, Exped. Niger, II. xiv. 277. Dressed in a full bornouse, or Arab cloak.
1841. Marryat, Poacher (Rtldg.), 279. Their white bournous … waving in the wind.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea, I. 289. The burnous … is his [the Arab’s] garment by day and by night.
1875. J. H. Bennet, Winter Medit., I. ix. 263. The latter [inhabitants of Algiers] wear one, two, or three thick woollen bournous with hoods, which envelop them from the head to the feet.
2. A kind of cloak or mantle worn by women, resembling the Arabian garment.
1859. Sala, Tw. round Clock, 111. The Burnouse cloaks, and the Llama shawls. Ibid. (1863), Capt. Dang., III. viii. 254. The folds of her White Burnouse.
1876. Geo. Eliot, Dan. Der., I. xi. 219. I want to put on my burnous.
