tapestry

English

Etymology

From Middle English tapiestre, from Old French tapisserie (“tapestry”), from Ancient Greek τάπης (tápēs), from an Iranian source.

Pronunciation

• enPR: tă'pəstrē, IPA^(key): /ˈtæpəstɹi/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Tapestry Room from Croome Court.

Noun

tapestry (countable and uncountable, plural tapestries)

1. A heavy woven cloth, often with decorative pictorial designs, normally hung on walls.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine, while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry-hung wall behind.

2. (by extension) Anything with variegated or complex details.
   • 2013 January-February, Nancy Langston, “The Fraught History of a Watery World”, in American Scientist‎^[1], volume 101, number 1, archived from the original on 22 January 2013, page 59:

     European adventurers found themselves within a watery world, a tapestry of streams, channels, wetlands, lakes and lush riparian meadows enriched by floodwaters from the Mississippi River.

Derived terms

• be part of life's rich tapestry
• tapestry beetle
• tapestry moth

 

Translations

heavy woven cloth

• Bulgarian: гоблен (bg) m (goblen)
• Catalan: tapís (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 壁毯 (zh) (bìtǎn), 掛毯／挂毯 (zh) (guàtǎn)

• Czech: tapiserie f
• Dutch: gobelin (nl) n, wandtapijt (nl) n
• Esperanto: tapeto (eo), gobelino
• Finnish: seinävaate (fi)
• French: tapisserie (fr) f
• Galician: tapiz m
• German: Wandteppich (de) m, Bildteppich (de) m, Bildwirkerei (de) f, Tapisserie (de) f, Gobelin (de) m
• Italian: arazzo (it) m, tappezzeria (it) f
• Japanese: タペストリー (tapesutorī)
• Maori: tui raumata
• Portuguese: tapeçaria (pt) f
• Romanian: tapiserie (ro) f
• Russian: гобеле́н (ru) m (gobelén), шпалера (ru) f (špalera)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: таписѐрија f

  Roman: tapisèrija (sh) f

• Spanish: tapiz (es) m
• Swedish: gobeläng (sv)
• Turkish: duvar halısı (tr), duvar kilimi

anything with variegated or complex details

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Finnish: kudos (fi), labyrintti (fi)
• French: please add this translation if you can

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

• Dutch: ^{(please verify)} wandtapijt (nl) n

Verb

tapestry (third-person singular simple present tapestries, present participle tapestrying, simple past and past participle tapestried)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To decorate with tapestry, or as if with a tapestry.
   • 1833, Adolphus Slade, Records of Travels in Turkey, Greece, &c.‎^[2], "Captain Pasha's Alarm", page 152:

     We had run above twenty miles when the sun set, carpeting the sea, and tapestrying the sky with a rare unison of delicate green and golden hues […]

   • 1854 September 13, Nathaniel Hawthorne, English Note-Books‎^[3], "Conway Castle":

     The banqueting-hall, all open to the sky, and with thick curtains of ivy tapestrying the walls, and grass and weeds growing on the arches that overpass it, is indescribably beautiful.

   • 1921, Israel Zangwill, The Cockpit: Romantic Drama in Three Acts‎^[4], page 255:

     I present Bosnavina to its Duchess, I kiss the hem of her Majesty's robe and will tapestry her Palace with conquered flags.

Translations

to decorate with tapestry

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Finnish: koristella seinävaattein
• French: please add this translation if you can

See also

• tapetum lucidum

Anagrams

• spattery, tryptase