textile

Etymology

As a noun it is borrowed from Latin textile (“woven fabric”), the neuter of the adjective textilis (“woven”) used as a noun;^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the adjective was taken from the Latin adjective.^[2][6] The adjective is formed on the past participle stem of texō (“to weave”), with the suffix that became -ile.^[2][4][7][8] The Latin verb is also the source of text and texture, and Etymonline traces it to the root Proto-Indo-European *teks- (“to weave, also to fabricate”).^[5][2] Hoad also allows a borrowing of textile,^[9] but the OED dates the French word only from 1752 as an adjective and 1872 as a noun.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A woven fabric: 1626, in Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum,^[2][6][4] the 1620s in Etymonline.^[5] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1520–30.^[10] The adjective, woven, is recorded from 1656, in Blount's Glossographia.^[2][6][5]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) knew the word only as an adjective, "woven; capable of being woven", though his first quotation, from Bacon, uses it as a noun.^[11] From 1648 the noun was also used of a fibre that can be spun and woven,^[2] and the sense later widened to any cloth, natural or synthetic, woven or not.^[2][7] The plural textiles has named the industry that makes fabrics since 1853,^[2] and the study or art of making them since 1888.^[2] Among naturists textile has meant a person who prefers to wear clothes since 1970 as an adjective and 1979 as a noun.^[2][12][13]

Timeline

• 1626 – a woven fabric, in Bacon.^[2][6]
• 1648 – a fibre that can be woven.^[2]
• 1656 – adjective, woven.^[2][6]
• 1853 – textiles, the industry.^[2]
• 1888 – textiles, the field of study or art.^[2]
• 1970 – (naturists) adjective, not naturist.^[2]
• 1979 – (naturists) a person who wears clothes.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Any cloth or fabric, especially one that is woven or knitted: The museum has a fine collection of Persian textiles.
2. A fibre or yarn from which cloth can be made.
3. Textiles: the industry that manufactures fabrics, or the study and art of making them.
4. (among naturists) A person who wears clothes; a non-naturist.

Adjective

1. Relating to fabrics or their manufacture: a textile mill.

Related words

• text
• texture
• context
• pretext
• tissue
• subtle

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 o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com