Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A finely woven white linen or cotton fabric.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A thin, fine linen, said to have been first manufactured at Cambrai in France, introduced in the sixteenth century for the fine ruffs worn at that period, as well as for bands, kerchiefs, etc.; in modern times, the finest linen made. See batiste. An imitation of cambric is made of fine cotton yarn, hardtwisted. Muslin is a name often applied to a kind of linen cambric manufactured in Great Britain from flax.
- n. Same as cambric-muslin, 2.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A fine, thin, and white fabric made of flax or linen.
- n. A fabric made, in imitation of linen cambric, of fine, hardspun cotton, often with figures of various colors; -- also called
cotton cambric , andcambric muslin .
WordNet 3.0
- n. a finely woven white linen
Etymologies
- Obsolete Flemish kameryk, from Kameryk, Cambrai, a city of northern France.
Examples
“She wears a gown of rich silk, opening in front to display a chemisette of the most delicate cambric, which is scarcely less delicate than her skin.”
“After their coffee before the open fire -- she herself had had "cambric" coffee -- Peter smoked his cigar, while she curled up in silence in the twin to his big cushioned chair and sampled her chocolates.”
“And, to wash it all down, he had a little blue cup of tea, "cambric" of course, quite as his mother would have wished.”
“The Strangers House is a fair and spacious house, built of brick, of somewhat a bluer colour than our brick; and with handsome windows, some of glass; some of a kind of cambric oiled.”
“She chose an apron of some fine stuff, such as cambric, and having so prepared the wax that it should be sufficiently soft to yield and spread with the warmth of the hand, she gave it a first rude shape by holding it in her hands and moulding it rudely with pressure applied at discretion, while, as a portrait-painter, she looked at the countenance and consulted the visage and features she would imitate.”
Documenting the American South: The Southern Experience in 19-th Century America
“The strangers 'house is a fair and spacious house, built of brick, of somewhat a bluer color than our brick; and with handsome windows, some of glass, some of a kind of cambric oiled.”
“The strangers 'house is a fair and spacious house, built of brick, of somewhat a bluer colour than our brick; and with handsome windows, some of glass, some of a kind of cambric oiled.”
“The Strangers 'House is a fair and spacious house, built of brick, of somewhat a bluer colour than our brick; and with handsome windows, some of glass, some of a kind of cambric oiled.”
“The strangers’ house is a fair and spacious house, built of brick, of somewhat a bluer color than our brick; and with handsome windows, some of glass, some of a kind of cambric oiled.”
“This morning, Mother had still not come out of her room; Grandfather stomped off to the Exchange himself and returned with three books used; a block of lemon castle-soap; cloth for: new chemises, summer and winter drawers, and woollen skirts for us; and a new cambric handkerchief for Mother.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cambric’.
bilby "VALERIA: You would be another Penelope; yet they say all the yarn she spun in Ulysses' absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths. Come; I would your cambric were sensible as your finger, that you might leave pricking it for pity."
- William Shakespeare, 'The Tragedy of Coriolanus'. Aug 28, 2009
treeseed excerpt from Scarborough Fair/Canticle - Paul Simon/Art Garfunkel, 1966
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
(On the side of a hill in the deep forest green)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Tracing a sparrow on snow-crested ground)
Without no seams nor needlework
(Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain)
Then she'll be a true love of mine
(Sleeps unaware of the clarion call) Feb 12, 2008