muslin
English
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Angelica_Kauffmann%2C_Portrait_of_Henrietta%2C_Countess_of_Bessborough_%281793%29.jpg/170px-Angelica_Kauffmann%2C_Portrait_of_Henrietta%2C_Countess_of_Bessborough_%281793%29.jpg)
Etymology
From French mousseline, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Italian mussolina, from Mussolo (“Mosul”), that is Mosul in northern Iraq (compare 1875 Knight, Edward H., Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, V2 p1502: "Muslins are so called from Moussol in India.")
Pronunciation
Noun
muslin (usually uncountable, plural muslins)
- (textile) Any of several varieties of thin cotton cloth.
- 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 11:
- ... my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as fashionable baronets' daughters should.
- 1875, Edward H. Knight, Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, Vol.2 p.1502:
- A bleached or unbleached thin white cotton cloth, unprinted and undyed. [Nineteen varieties are thereafter listed.]
- Template:RQ:SWymn ChpngBrgh
- It was April 22, 1831, and a young man was walking down Whitehall in the direction of Parliament Street. He wore shepherd's plaid trousers and the swallow-tail coat of the day, with a figured muslin cravat wound about his wide-spread collar.
- 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 11:
- (US) Fabric made of cotton, flax (linen), hemp, or silk, finely or coarsely woven.
- 1875, Edward H. Knight, Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, Vol.2 pp.1502−3:
- Other very different styles of fabric are now indifferently called muslins, and the term is used differently on the respective sides of the Atlantic.
- 1875, Edward H. Knight, Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, Vol.2 pp.1502−3:
- Any of a wide variety of tightly-woven thin fabrics, especially those used for bedlinen.
- (US) Woven cotton or linen fabrics, especially when used for items other than garments.
- (countable) A dressmaker's pattern made from inexpensive cloth for fitting.
- Any of several different moths.
Derived terms
- butter muslin
- See “muslin”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
Translations
thin cotton cloth
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very different styles of fabric — see fabric
thin fabric used for bedlinen
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dressmaker's pattern
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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References
- “muslin”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
- “muslin”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.