Skirt and Shirt

With anticipation of Spring's warm weather, I decided to look up the etymology of one of my favorite things to wear in warm weather: a skirt. Skirt as defined by the OED, is "The lower part of a woman's dress or gown, covering the person from the waist downwards; also, especially in the modern use, a separate outer garment serving this purpose". According to the AHD, the word skirt came in through Middle English from the Old Norse word skyrta, which means "shirt"! The OED tells us that "the development of the English sense is obscure, but the corresponding Low German sch(o with umlaut)rt has in some districts the sense of 'woman's gown' ". Also, according to the OED, the Old Norse skyrta corresponds with the Old English word scyrte, (note: In Old English, when a c was preceded by an s, it changed into a sh sound), which our modern-day word shirt is derived from! The AHD defines shirt as "a garment for the upper part of the body, typically having a collar, sleeves, and a front opening". Isn't it interesting how two distinct words for different types of clothing are so closely related?!