It is not clear where the variant pareo comes from.

Right now, Bloomingdale's has the perfect pareo for making a skirt.

And it's Donna Karan's turn to try to get men into what is now being called a pareo.

She rubbed herself as dry as possible, and wrapped a pareo round her waist.

On arrival everyone is supplied with a pareo, rather than robe, and a hand-woven basket in which to keep belongings.

The group dance called 'Aparima is often performed with the dancers dressed in pareo and maro.

These, like the djellaba, the kimono and the pareo, offer a welcome freedom for the body accustomed to a tailored suit.

On these locations, it is formally necessary to wear what the French jokingly call "le minimum", often a pareo or a string.

A Tahitian men's loin-cloth, now superseded by the pareo or pareu.

A large flower-patterned pareo silk from India can be worn as a bathing suit coverup or an evening dress.

Clay blotched white spotted black crepe pareo skirt."

Consider the pareo.

Nowadays, however, pareo can be considered as the English-language form of the word (plural pareos), much less likely subject to mispronunciation.

The participants wore the pareo, the local version of a sarong, and swayed in the way that all Polynesian dancers are supposed to sway.

Ms. Karan ties a pareo around the waist of shorts or jeans for women who feel their figures can profit from some camouflage.

Tropic Monoi "pareo hand painting"

"Pareo wa Emerald"

She now owns and run her own clinic called Pareo and Wolf in Studio City.

The pāreu or pareo (see below) is the Cook Islands and Tahitian word for a wraparound skirt.

There's also a pareo dress that looks like a long scarf tied halter-style around the neck, with long silk fringe dripping from the hem.

Another common name for the Polynesian variety is pāreu (usually spelled pareo), which is the Tahitian name.

Tall and regal, her long auburn hair flowing past her bare shoulders, she too was wearing a wraparound pareo, forest green with a white floral pattern.

She'd swapped the pareo for white bermudas and a loose navy and white striped T-shirt to keep the scorching sun off her shoulders.

So the smart thing is to take a cover-up that has other uses, like an oversize man's shirt or a big cotton pareo that can double as a shawl.

Barbara Bui recut the pareo, a brightly printed bolt of fabric, in all imaginable ways: as pants, dresses, blouses and jackets, sometimes putting lei brassieres beneath.