The word hood derives from the Anglo-Saxon word hōd, ultimately of the same root as an English hat. The garment’s style and form can be traced back to Medieval Europe when the preferred clothing for monks included a hood called a cowl attached to a tunic or robes, and a chaperon or hooded cape was very commonly worn by any outdoors worker. Its appearance was known in England at least as early as the 12th century, possibly an import with the Norman conquest of England, as the capa was “a short hooded cloak which was common in Normandy.”
The hooded pullover is a utilitarian garment that originated in the 1930s in the US for workers in cold New York warehouses. The earliest clothing style was first produced by Champion in the 1930s and marketed to laborers working in freezing temperatures in upstate New York. The term hoodie entered popular usage in the 1990s.