umbrella

Where it comes from

An umbrella is a folding canopy carried for protection from rain or sun. Its name came through Italian from a Latin diminutive associated with umbra, shade or shadow. In the Mediterranean setting behind the word, the object was naturally understood as a sunshade. In English use, the same portable canopy became ordinary rain protection, while parasol remained the more explicit sun word. The object could block either sun or rain, but the borrowed name remembered the shade it cast.

How the meaning developed

Even in a downpour, umbrella carries the shadow of the sunshade in its name.