Gabardine, a long, loose, coarse cloak, with or without sleeves and a hood. It was an outdoor garment worn by peasants and workmen and by Jews. The laws of the Middle Ages forbade the Jew to wear the cloak of a gentleman; hence the gabardine carried with it the idea of social inferiority. You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, And spit upon my Jewish gabardine, And all for use of that which is mine own. --Merchant of Venice. Here was a Tangier merchant in sky-blue gabardine with a Persian shawl twisted around his waist.--Aldrich, Ponkapog to Pesth.