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I recently read the opening chapter of Middlemarch and was surprised by the appearance of the word gimp in relation to articles of clothing. In this context it meant

twisted silk, worsted, or cotton with cord or wire running through it, used chiefly as upholstery trimming

However, I was only familiar with the gimp from Pulp Fiction. According to wiktionary this is :

A sexual submissive, almost always male, dressed generally in a black leather suit.

This is apparently derived from another meaning of gimp that OED dates to the 1920s (origin unknown).

a physically disabled or lame person

Wiktionary suggests that the word is a mutation of limp and therefore unrelated to gimp fabric. But what about the BDSM sort of gimp, when and where was the first such usage and which came first, the gimp or the gimp suit? Does the 'sexual submissive' meaning originate from the Tarantino film?

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    I don't have sources (other than my gf), but there's a French word, "guimpe". A part of women's dress in Middle Ages that'd hide cleavage. It evolved into full body undergarments called "combinaison guimpe" ("guimp suit"). Then it got fetishised, made tight and of decorative materials, sort of body tights, and that's the meaning of it in BDSM before Pulp Fiction. It didn't look anything like what Tarantino shown. Character in Pulp Fiction was named Gimp, because he couldn't speak. Current meaning of "gimp suit" and "gimp mask" came only after the movie.
    – cprn
    Commented Oct 13 at 0:07

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EtymOnline has this:

gimp (1) 1925, "a crippled leg," also "a crippled person," perhaps by association with limp, or a corruption of gammy (see game (adj.)).

gimp (2) also gymp, ornamental material for trimming dresses, furniture, etc., 1660s, from Fr. guimpe, O.Fr. guimple "wimple, headdress, veil," from a Germanic source (cf. O.H.G. wimpal).

It agrees with your sources on etymology of gimp as a slang word and sheds some light on it's "fabric" meaning, which seems to be at least several hundred years older.

As to gimp suit, it seems to be coined in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (Wikipedia) and is younger than both above meanings of gimp.

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Gimp suit as a BDSM term is believed to have originated in the late seventies or early eighties, although its original usage differs slightly from what we are familiar with today. It does not originate from the Quentin Tarantino movie Pulp Fiction. It can first be observed in erotic BDSM literature around the described time period.

Based on some of these texts, it seems that the original "gimp suits" were more of a complicated full body restraint than a full body harness/shame-cover as they are more typically viewed today. A common theme in a lot of bondage play was the limitation of the submissive's ability to move, whether it be via handcuff, leash, or restrictive clothes such as corsets. The "gimp suit" originally expanded on this idea, with several latch points for external restraints, stiff fabrics and even stiffer reinforcements, and various other points of restraint.

The gimp suit was a veritable full body restraint. Although I have no confirmation on this (I wasn't around to watch the conception of the term), it seems most likely that it was termed a "gimp" suit because it essentially handicapped the user, making them a more classical "gimp." I've discussed this terminology before, and that is the best I've ever come up with. Today, gimp suits are more an objectification and humiliation tool, meant more to degrade the wearer to a sexual "toy" as opposed to partner. However, many suits still retain the original idea of restraint.

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    Thanks for responding, and I'd probably switch this to the correct answer if you could quote the published BDSM texts you're referring to.
    – z7sg Ѫ
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 19:33

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