charshafn.

1926 A. Goodrich-Freer Things seen in Constantinople v. 59 The athletic activity of the modern girl is the more surprising that the tcharchaf, elegant and becoming as it is, is not practical for active sports, especially as it is usually made of silk.

1928 Blackwood's Mag. July 85/1 She threw off the silken charchaf that hid her beauty.

1938 Times Lit. Suppl. 23 Apr. 275/1 Visitors to the Balkans..come away with the impression that the yashmak and the tcharchaff, that long black garment which veils Albanian women..are picturesque survivals worn to please..the tourist.

1943 G. W. Price in C. Knox For ever England 197 His English-born wife..continued to live the veiled..life of a Turkish woman. Moving about the streets of Constantinople shrouded in her black tchartchaf and veil, she sometimes saw English people.

1955 V. Nabokov Lolita I. xi. 71 Is it because there is always delight in the semitranslucent mystery, the flowing charshaf, through which the flesh and the eye you alone are elected to know smile in passing at you alone?

1963 Times 17 Jan. 12/6 Over the head she wore the traditional charshaf or headscarf which is what is left of the veil today in Turkey; it covered her chin and came well down on her forehead.

1972 D. Hotham Turks iii. 30 Highly symbolic of the Reaction, in the eyes of the Kemalists, is the black headscarf worn by women, known as the Charshaf. This is not the same as the veil..women in backward parts of the country use the black headscarf to cover their faces, almost as if it were a veil.

1986 Times 10 Nov. 10/7 The increasing number of women in charshaf, the Muslim black headscarf, that one notices in the streets of Istanbul.