What Does Togs Mean? A Commonwealth Slang Guide
One word, two very different things
In Brisbane, "grab your togs" means find your swimsuit before you head to the pool. In Manchester, "what tog is it?" means check the number on the duvet label before winter sets in. The same four letters do two jobs, and which one you mean depends on where you grew up.
Both meanings are standard where they are used. Wiktionary lists "swimming togs" as the word for a swimsuit in Ireland, Queensland and New Zealand. In Britain, tog is the unit printed on duvet packaging. Argos describes it as "the unit of measurement used to describe a duvet's ability to trap air and retain heat." The mix-up happens when the two worlds meet: a New Zealander shopping for a UK trip, or a British reader landing on an Australian swimwear page.
This guide covers where each meaning came from, where each one is used, and how to tell which one a writer means.
Togs as swimwear
The swimwear sense grew out of an older, wider one. On its own, "togs" is informal English for clothes. Wiktionary marks that use as UK slang and quotes Charles Dickens using it in Oliver Twist in 1838. Wiktionary also lists it with a qualifier for clothes worn for one job, such as "gardening togs" or "swimming togs". In Ireland, Queensland and New Zealand, "swimming togs" means a swimsuit, and the word works on its own too: Wikipedia lists plain "togs" as the Queensland word for swimming clothes.
The word is plural in form but names a single item. You put on "your togs", never "a tog", and it covers a one-piece, a bikini, board shorts or men's briefs alike. It names what the clothes are for, not their cut.
Australia does not use one word across the whole country. According to Wikipedia's article on Australian English, swimming clothes are "known as cossies, togs or swimmers in New South Wales, togs in Queensland, and bathers in Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia." Wiktionary's appendix of Australian clothing terms gives the same pattern in more detail:
- Togs: used mainly in Queensland, and by some people in Western Australia and Victoria.
- Bathers: the most common term in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania.
- Swimmers: used mainly in New South Wales, and sometimes in Queensland.
- Cossie or cozzie: from "swimming costume", and mostly limited to New South Wales.
So when an Australian says "togs", the safest guess is that they are from Queensland. Our guide to togs vs bathers vs cossie covers the state-by-state split in more depth.
Togs as a duvet rating
In Britain, "tog" almost always means the warmth rating on a duvet. It is a unit of thermal resistance: how well a layer of fabric slows the loss of heat. The higher the number, the warmer the duvet.
The unit has a precise origin. Wikipedia's article on the tog records that F. T. Peirce and W. H. Rees of the Shirley Institute in Manchester developed it in 1946, as a handier alternative to the scientific unit for thermal resistance. One tog equals 0.1 square metre kelvin per watt. In plain terms, a fabric rated at one tog keeps a 0.1 °C difference between its two sides when one watt of heat flows through each square metre. The test equipment, the Shirley Togmeter, is described in the British Standard BS 4745:2005.
Peirce and Rees never explained why they chose the name. Wikipedia notes that Collins Dictionary derives the unit from "tog" meaning clothes, and Chambers Dictionary gives "1940s: perhaps from tog [as clothing]". Retailers often expand it as "thermal overall grade": Marks & Spencer's duvet guide uses that phrase. Wikipedia calls it a backronym, a meaning fitted to the word after the fact.
On the shop floor, the rating works like this. Argos says most UK duvets are rated between 4.5 and 15 tog, and gives this guide by season:
- Summer: 1 to 4.5 tog, for hot sleepers and warm bedrooms.
- Spring and autumn: 7.5 to 10.5 tog.
- Winter: 12 to 15 tog, for cold sleepers and cooler bedrooms.
- All season: 10.5 tog, or two duvets fastened together.
Marks & Spencer's guide gives the same bands and adds one more option: its All Seasons duvet is "a 3-in-1 combination of our 4.5 and 9 tog duvets", which you fasten together for winter and use apart in summer. Two thin duvets, buttoned together, make one warm one.
Argos also points out a common mistake: the rating does not describe the duvet's weight. Weight and thickness come from the filling, while the tog number measures how well the duvet traps air. Our tog rating chart by season goes through each rating in more detail.
Why one word does two jobs
Both meanings come from the same old root. Etymonline dates "tog" to 1708, meaning "outer garment", and notes it was usually plural ("togs") from the later 1700s. It was shortened from "togman", a 1560s thieves' slang word for a cloak or loose coat, which came from French and in turn from the Latin "toga".
From that shared start, the two meanings went separate ways. In Ireland, Queensland and New Zealand, the clothing sense narrowed to the clothes you swim in. In Manchester in 1946, two textile scientists picked a short clothing word for a unit that measures how warm fabric keeps you. Collins and Chambers both tie the unit's name to clothing, though the inventors left no note confirming it.
Does the UK use "togs" for swimwear too?
Rarely. Wiktionary records "togs" as British slang for clothes in general, which is the Dickens sense, but the swimwear meaning it lists belongs to Ireland, Queensland and New Zealand. Wikipedia's Australian English article gives the British word for the same garment as "swimming costume". A British shopper who sees "togs" on a label is far more likely to be looking at a duvet than a swimsuit.
That gap matters when you shop online. A search for "togs" can bring up duvets for one reader and swimwear for another, depending on where the search engine thinks you are. Adding "swimming" or "duvet" to the search fixes it.
Regional cheat sheet
If you are reading across borders, this table shows who means what, based on the sources above:
| Region | What "togs" usually means | Other common words |
|---|---|---|
| Queensland | Swimwear | Swimmers |
| New South Wales | Swimwear, alongside other words | Swimmers, cossie |
| Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania | Swimwear for some speakers | Bathers |
| New Zealand | Swimwear | |
| Ireland | Swimwear | |
| United Kingdom | Duvet warmth rating | Swimming costume |
The UK is the odd one out. Everywhere else on this list, togs go in the beach bag.
Where to buy
If you came here looking for swimwear, our guides to Australian swimwear brands and girls' togs in New Zealand are the place to start. If you came for bedding, the tog rating chart by season and our comparison of 13.5 tog and 15 tog duvets cover the warmer end of the range.