bikini

bikini How the word bikini came to apply to the skimpy two-piece swimsuit has been a linguistic mystery since 1947, when bikinis were first seen on the beaches of the French Riviera, a year after the United States began testing atom bombs on the Bikini atoll of the Marshall Islands. Some shocked people said that the impact of the swimsuit on male beach loungers was like the devastating effect of the atomic bomb. Whoosh! And so they were called bikinis.

A simpler and more credible notion is that the daring swimsuits resembled the attire worn by women on the Bikini atoll.