Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Sacking.
  • noun A rough cloth of camel's hair, goat hair, hemp, cotton, or flax.
  • noun Garments made of this cloth, worn as a symbol of mourning or penitence.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Cloth of which sacks are made, usually a cloth of hemp or flax.
  • noun A coarse kind of cloth worn as a sign of grief, humiliation, or penitence; hence, the garb of mourning or penance.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Linen or cotton cloth such as sacks are made of; coarse cloth; anciently, a cloth or garment worn in mourning, distress, mortification, or penitence.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A coarse hessian style of cloth used to make sacks.
  • noun , garments worn as an act of penance. Now often used figuratively.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a garment made of coarse sacking; formerly worn as an indication of remorse
  • noun a coarse cloth resembling sacking

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

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  • From a comment on languagehat:

    “Sackcloth”, often used in the masochistic sense of “hair shirt”, apparently traces back to the Persian “Sakkalat, saklatun”, which meant a kind of woollen broadcloth. (“Sack” + “cloth” is a apparently a etymology.) The form “syklatoun” is seen in Chaucer. “Sackcloth” is attested in 1430 (OED old ed). The term “suklat” was used in England in the XIXc for certain blankets or camlets from China.

    Yule says that according to Skeat, “scarlet” also traces back to “sakkalat”, and first meant the kind of cloth, and only later meant a certain color of this cloth.

    “Ciclas” is an XIIIc Italian or Latin translation of “siklatoun”. This is shouting distance of “celice”.

    HOWEVER, the old OED doesn’t recognize any of this, and does not seem to list Chaucer’s “syklatoun”.

    August 12, 2020