different between muslin vs flannel

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

Alternative forms

• flannen (dialectal)
• flanan, flanning, flanen (Scotland)

Etymology

From Middle English flaunneol, from Anglo-Norman flanelle (compare Norman flianné), diminutive of Old French flaine, floene (“coarse wool”), from Gaulish, from Proto-Celtic *wl?nos, *wlan? (“wool”) (compare Welsh gwlân, Breton gloan), from Proto-Indo-European *h?w??h?neh?. More at wool.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?flæn?l/
• Rhymes: -æn?l
• Hyphenation: flan?nel

Noun

flannel (countable and uncountable, plural flannels)

1. (uncountable) A soft cloth material originally woven from wool, today often combined with cotton or synthetic fibers.

   With the weather turning colder, it was time to dig out our flannel sheets and nightclothes.

   • 2012, Tom Lamont, How Mumford & Sons became the biggest band in the world (in The Daily Telegraph, 15 November 2012)[1]

     First singer and guitarist Marcus Mumford, wearing a black suit, then bassist Ted Dwane, in leather bomber and T-shirt. Next bearded banjo player Winston Marshall, his blue flannel shirt hanging loose, and pianist Ben Lovett, wrapped in a woollen coat.

2. (New Zealand, Australia, Britain, countable) A washcloth.
3. (US, countable) A flannel shirt.
4. (slang, uncountable) Soothing, plausible untruth or half-truth; claptrap.

   Don't talk flannel!

Derived terms

Descendants

• Chinese:
  • ? Mandarin: ??? (f?lánróng)
• ? Danish: flannel
• ? French: flanelle (see there for further descendants)
• ? Japanese: ????? (furaneru)

Translations

Adjective

flannel (not comparable)

1. Made of flannel.

Translations

Verb

flannel (third-person singular simple present flannels, present participle flanneling or flannelling, simple past and past participle flanneled or flannelled)

1. (transitive) To rub with a flannel.
2. (transitive) To wrap in flannel.
3. (transitive) To flatter; to suck up to.

Anagrams

• fannell

Danish

Etymology

From English flannel. Cognate to flonel and to Welsh gwlân (“wool”).

Noun

flannel

1. soft, slightly scratched woven fabric made of wool

References

• “flannel” in Den Danske Ordbog