style of women's dress imitating Alpine peasant costume, with bodice and full skirt, 1937 (from 1921 as a German word in articles on German fashion), from German dialectal diminutive of dirne "girl" (in dirndlkleid "peasant dress"), from a diminutive of Middle High German dierne "maid," from Old High German thiorna, which is related to Old English þegn (see thane).