Mechlin

English

Proper noun

Mechlin

1. Dated form of Mechelen. (city in Belgium)

Noun

Mechlin (uncountable)

1. A kind of lace made at, or originating in, Mechelen, having a bobbin ground and designs outlined by thread or flat cord.
   • 1725-8, Edward Young, Love of Fame, The Universal Passion, "Satire V: On Women", line 359-60

     And if disputes of empire rise between / Mechlin, the queen of lace, and Colberteen.

   • 1803 (date written), [Jane Austen], Northanger Abbey; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818), →OCLC:

     […] “Only think, my dear, of my having got that frightful great rent in my best Mechlin so charmingly mended, before I left Bath, that one can hardly see where it was.

   • a. 1887 (date written), Emily Dickinson, “I went to heaven”, in Mabel Loomis Todd and T[homas] W[entworth] Higginson, editors, Poems, Second Series, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1891, page 196:

     People like the moth, / Of mechlin, frames, / Duties of gossamer, / And eider names.

Alternative forms

• mechlin, Mecklin