While listening to a programme on Radio Scotland today I heard mention of downies, which seems to be a Scottish word for duvet. These days I usually call these things duvets, but when I was a child I had a slumberdown, which I think might be a trade name. I’ve also heard them called quilts or continental quilts, and think they’re called comforters in the USA.
The definition of duvet in the OED is “A quilt stuffed with eider-down or swan’s-down”, and it comes from the French word duvet (down), from dumet, a diminutive of Old French dum (down).
What do you call these things?
