drapery

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English draperie,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French draperie (“weaving, cloth-making; cloth shop”),^[4][5][6][7] which is formed from drap (“cloth, piece of cloth”), or from drapier (“draper”), and -erie.^[5][8][3][2] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from 1150–70 for cloth, clothing and the cloth trade.^[9] The French noun drap is from Late Latin drappus,^[2][4] perhaps of Gaulish or other Celtic origin;^[4][2] it is the source of drape, draper and drab in the sense of a cloth.^[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cloth or textile fabrics collectively: before 1300, in the Satire on the People of Kildare;^[5] Etymonline dates it to the early 14th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word also meant the making of cloth and the cloth trade,^[2][5] and later also the place where cloth was made or sold;^[5][4] Johnson (1755) still defined it first as "clothwork; the trade of making cloth".^[10] From the early 17th century it was a term of art for the arrangement of clothing in painting and sculpture,^[5][8] and in the 1680s it came to mean the cloth with which anything is draped, including hangings and the clothing of figures in art.^[5][4] The plural draperies, curtains, belongs to this use.^[8][2] In British English the word still names cloth goods and a draper's trade.^[2][11]

Timeline

• before 1300 – cloth or textiles collectively.^[5] Etymonline dates it to the early 14th century.^[4]
• c. 1475 – a place where cloth is made (obsolete by 1610), and a draper's shop.^[5] Etymonline dates the senses "place where cloth is made; cloth market" to the late 14th century.^[4]
• 1488 – the cloth trade; the making or selling of cloth.^[5]
• 1610 – the arrangement of clothing in painting or sculpture.^[5]
• 1686 – the material with which something is draped; hangings, clothing in art.^[5][4]
• 1824 – verb, to cover with drapery, in Byron's Don Juan.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. Cloth hung or arranged in loose, graceful folds for decoration.^[2][11][5]
2. Often plural: curtains, especially heavy ones hung over thinner curtains.^[2][11]
3. Clothing or cloth arranged in folds on the body, or shown so in painting or sculpture; also, the way it is arranged.^[2][5]
4. (British) Cloth and fabrics collectively; dry goods.^[2][11][5]
5. (British) The trade or business of a draper.^[2][11][5]

Verb

1. To cover or adorn with drapery; used chiefly in the past participle draperied.^[2][5]

Word family

• draperied

Related words

• drape
• draper
• drab

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins