different between muslin vs canvas

English

Etymology

From French mousseline, from Italian mussolina, from Mussolo (“Mosul”), that is Mosul in northern Iraq (compare 1875 Knight, Edward H., Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, V2 p1502: "Muslins are so called from Moussol in India.")

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?m?z.l?n/

Noun

muslin (usually uncountable, plural muslins)

1. (textile) Any of several varieties of thin cotton cloth.
   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 11:

     ... my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as fashionable baronets' daughters should.

   • 1875, Edward H. Knight, Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, Vol.2 p.1502:

     A bleached or unbleached thin white cotton cloth, unprinted and undyed. [Nineteen varieties are thereafter listed.]

   • It was April 22, 1831, and a young man was walking down Whitehall in the direction of Parliament Street. He wore shepherd's plaid trousers and the swallow-tail coat of the day, with a figured muslin cravat wound about his wide-spread collar.

2. (US) Fabric made of cotton, flax (linen), hemp, or silk, finely or coarsely woven.
   • 1875, Edward H. Knight, Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, Vol.2 pp.1502?3:

     Other very different styles of fabric are now indifferently called muslins, and the term is used differently on the respective sides of the Atlantic.

3. Any of a wide variety of tightly-woven thin fabrics, especially those used for bedlinen.
4. (US) Woven cotton or linen fabrics, especially when used for items other than garments.
5. (countable) A dressmaker's pattern made from inexpensive cloth for fitting.
6. Any of several different moths, especially the muslin moth, Diaphora mendica.

Derived terms

• butter muslin
• See muslin in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Translations

References

• muslin at OneLook Dictionary Search
• muslin in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Sumlin, ulmins, unslim

English

Etymology

From Middle English canevas, from Anglo-Norman, from Old Northern French canevas (compare Old French chanevas, chenevas) from a root derived from Latin cannabis, from Ancient Greek ???????? (kánnabis). Compare French canevas, resulting from a blend of the Old French and a Picard dialect word, itself from Old Northern French. Doublet of cannabis and hemp.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kæn.v?s/
• (US)
• Homophone: canvass

Noun

canvas (plural canvasses or canvases) (see usage notes)

1. A type of coarse cloth, woven from hemp, useful for making sails and tents or as a surface for paintings.
   • 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Volume 4, p. 556.

     The term canvas is very widely used, as well to denote the coarse fabrics employed for kitchen use, as for strainers, and wraps for meat, as for the best quality of ordinary table and shirting linen.

2. A piece of canvas cloth stretched across a frame on which one may paint.
3. A mesh of loosely woven cotton strands or molded plastic to be decorated with needlepoint, cross-stitch, rug hooking, or other crafts.
4. (figuratively) A basis for creative work.

   The author takes rural midwestern life as a canvas for a series of tightly woven character studies.

5. (computer graphics) A region on which graphics can be rendered.
6. (nautical) Sails in general.
7. A tent.

   He spent the night under canvas.

8. A painting, or a picture on canvas.
   • 1764, Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller

     The canvas glowed, beyond e'en nature warm
9. A rough draft or model of a song, air, or other literary or musical composition; especially one to show a poet the measure of the verses he is to make.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Grabb to this entry?)

10. Alternative spelling of canvass.

Usage notes

The plural canvases is used primarily in the US, while the plural canvasses is used in the UK and most UK-influenced areas.

Derived terms

• Canvastown

Translations

Verb

canvas (third-person singular simple present canvases, present participle canvasing, simple past and past participle canvased)

1. To cover an area or object with canvas.
2. Alternative spelling of canvass.

Translations

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch canevas, from Old Northern French canevas, from Latin cannabis, from Ancient Greek ???????? (kánnabis). The spelling was lated influenced by English canvas.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k?n.v?s/
• Hyphenation: can?vas

Noun

canvas n (plural canvassen)

1. canvas, sail

   Synonym: zeildoek

2. canvas, fabric used for painting

   Synonym: schilderdoek

Related terms

• cannabis

Descendants

• ? Indonesian: kampas

Spanish

Noun

canvas m

1. canvas