A glass vessel or bottle, with a large body and small neck, protected and strengthened by a covering of wicker-work. Mr. Webster derives it from the French dame-jeanne, but gives no further explanation. I met the word in Niebuhr's Travels in Arabia:
But we imprudently put our wine into great flasks, called in the East damasjanes, and large enough each of them to contain twenty ordinary bottles.--Vol. I. p. 169.
This induced the belief that the word was Arabic; but, on referring to the Arabic dictionary, no such word could be found. I made inquiry of several philologists, none of whom could give its origin. One day I asked a Frenchman who dealt in wines, why the French called them dame-jeannes? He replied at once, that they were invented in France at a time when large hoop-dresses were worn at court, and froni the resemblance of those large bottles to the small waists and full dresses of the ladies, they were called dame-jeannes, i. e. Lady Janes.