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Uncle Tom’s Cabin vocabulary

11 fashion terms (clothing, hair styles, fabrics, etc.)

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madras: tags: [fashion]

► definition

Definition:

A large silk-and-cotton kerchief, usually of bright colors, such as those often used by negroes for turbans.

Noah Webster. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
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a lightweight cotton fabric with typically patterned texture and plaid design, used primarily for summer clothing such as pants, shorts, dresses, and jackets. The fabric takes its name from the former name of the city of Chennai in India.

Madras today is available as plaid patterns in regular cotton, seersucker and as patchwork madras, meaning cutting several madras plaid fabrics into squares or rectangles and sewing them back together to form a mixed pattern of various plaids.

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► uses

Uses:

"Shif'less!" said Miss Ophelia to herself, proceeding to tumble over the drawer, where she found a nutmeg-grater and two or three nutmegs, a Methodist hymn-book, a couple of soiled Madras handkerchiefs, some yarn and knitting-work, [...].

Harriet Beecher Stowe. Uncle Tom's Cabin

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Herringbones and madras and lamb’s wool and cashmere flashed past in a blur as hands and arms rent the air in a variety of graceful gestures.

John Kennedy Toole. A Confederacy of Dunces (1980)