Loincloth
cloth worn around the loins, often as the sole article of clothing in warm climates
A loincloth is a one-piece garment, either wrapped around itself or kept in place by a belt. It covers the genitals and the intergluteal cleft though not always covering the entirety of the buttocks. Loincloths which are held up by belts or strings are specifically known as breechcloth or breechclout. Often, the flaps hang down in front and back.
History and types
Loincloths are worn in societies where no other clothing is needed or wanted. Loincloths are commonly used as an undergarment or swimsuit by wrestlers and by farmers in paddy fields in both Sri Lanka and India, where it is called Kovanam in Tamil, ambudaya in Sinhala and kaupinam or langot.
The loincloth, or breechcloth, is a basic form of dress, often worn as the only garment. Men have worn a loincloth as a fundamental piece of clothing which covers their genitals, not the buttocks, in most societies which disapproved of genital nakedness throughout human history. The loincloth is in essence a piece of material, bark-bast, leather, or cloth, passed between the legs and covering the genitals. Despite its functional simplicity, the loincloth comes in many different forms.
The public source identifies “Loincloth” as cloth worn around the loins, often as the sole article of clothing in warm climates. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Loincloth, cloth and worn.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Loincloth”, the useful work is to connect “cloth worn around the loins, often as the sole article of clothing in warm climates” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1130359. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Loincloth” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.