Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A piece of cardboard to which a sample or specimen of cloth, velvet, or the like is attached.
- noun Hence— A number of such pieces of cardboard, forming a sort of book, or folding alternately so as to open out in a long strip and exhibit, at one time, a number of patterns of stuff.
- noun In weaving, one of the perforated pieces of cardboard used in the Jacquard attachment to a loom.
Etymologies
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Examples
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It did not occur to him that Lydgate's marriage was not delightful: he believed, as the rest did, that Rosamond was an amiable, docile creature, though he had always thought her rather uninteresting -- a-little too much the pattern-card of the finishing-school; and his mother could not forgive Rosamond because she never seemed to see that Henrietta Noble was in the room.
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It did not occur to him that Lydgate's marriage was not delightful: he believed, as the rest did, that Rosamond was an amiable, docile creature, though he had always thought her rather uninteresting -- a little too much the pattern-card of the finishing-school; and his mother could not forgive Rosamond because she never seemed to see that
Middlemarch George Eliot 1849
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"Well, anyhow," said I, rallying myself, and speaking with some lightness of tone, "it is clear that Mrs. Tudor is no lady, for all you thought her such a pattern-card of gentility."
Home Scenes and Home Influence; a series of tales and sketches 1847
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The mysterious woods, the park avenues, all were cleared away; the landscape looked like a tailor's pattern-card.
Sons of the Soil Honor�� de Balzac 1824
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They lead the same kind of roving adventurous life, only changing the lance for a driving-whip, the buckler for a pattern-card, and the coat of mail for an upper Benjamin.
Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists Washington Irving 1821
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After passing this place, the scenery lost a good deal of the pastoral appearance which renders Normandy rather remarkable in France, and took still more of the starched pattern-card look, just mentioned.
Recollections of Europe James Fenimore Cooper 1820
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-- Here he continued the business of a japanner for life: his carriage, each pannel of which was a distinct picture, might be considered _the pattern-card of his trade_, and was drawn by a beautiful pair of cream-coloured horses.
An History of Birmingham (1783) William Hutton 1769
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And speaking of being in trouble, every time I’ve seen you, you’ve not exactly been a pattern-card of rectitude.
Shameless KAREN ROBARDS 2010
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And speaking of being in trouble, every time I’ve seen you, you’ve not exactly been a pattern-card of rectitude.
Shameless KAREN ROBARDS 2010
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a little too much the pattern-card of the finishing-school; and his mother could not forgive Rosamond because she never seemed to see that Henrietta Noble was in the room.
Middlemarch 1871
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