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Middlemarch vocabulary
19 fashion terms (clothing, hair styles, fabrics, etc.)
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calico
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tags: [fashion]
► definition
Definition:(in British usage since 1505) is a plain-woven textile made from unbleached and often not fully processed cotton. It may contain unseparated husk parts, for example. The fabric is far less fine than muslin, but less coarse and thick than canvas or denim, but it is still very cheap owing to its unfinished and undyed appearance.Noah Webster. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
photo: By Clem Rutter, Rochester, Kent. - I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license:, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12404509
► uses
Uses:
white calico curtains with a red border hung crossways at the length of the window;
Gustave Flaubert. Madame Bovary.
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Each put on a coarse straw bonnet, with strings of coloured calico, and a cloak of grey frieze.
Charlotte Brontë. Jane Eyre (1847)
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So we shortened up one of the calico gowns, and I turned up my trouser-legs to my knees and got into it.
Mark Twain. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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The old-fashioned people; women in aprons and Mother Hubbards of calico and gingham, men in their overalls and patched alpacas;
Ralph Ellison. The Invisible Man (1952)
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She was then proceeding to all the particulars of calico, muslin, and cambric, and would shortly have dictated some very plentiful orders, had not Jane, though with some difficulty, persuaded her to wait, till her father was at leisure to be consulted.
Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice (1813)
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