dagswain

English

Etymology

From dag (“a loose end”)?

Noun

dagswain (usually uncountable, plural dagswains)

1. (obsolete) A coarse woollen fabric made of daglocks.
   • 1577, Raphaell Holinshed, The Firste Volume of the Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande […], volume I, London: […] [Henry Bynneman] for Iohn Harrison, →OCLC:

     Our fathers (yea, and ourselves also) have lien full oft upon straw pallets, covered only with a sheet under coverlets made of dagswain or hopharlots (I use their own terms), and a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster or pillow.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “dagswain”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)