noun: coarse, hard-wearing, woollen cloth, usually woven in narrow strips, used as an underlay or protective covering, especially for carpets
1820, Sir John Palmer Acland in The Annual Register; or, A View of the History, Politics, and Literature: For the Year 1819 (volume LXI), “Parliamentary Reports, and Accounts”, ‘Report on Gaols’, 378/1:
Yes; the making of blanketing, druggeting and coarse things may be learned in a much shorter period, and all narrow cloth weaving may be taught in a much shorter period; but it requires a good deal of time to learn to throw the shuttle in the making of a breadth of cloth.
1851, MessrsGeorge Wallis and W. Hawkins (superintendents of classes 12 & 15), George Wagstaffe Yapp (editor), Official Catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations (corrected edition), works of industry of the United Kingdom, § III: “Manufactures”, Classes 12 and 15: ‘Woollen and Worsted, Mixed Fabrics, including Shawls — Areas L. M. N. O. 10 to 17, and South Transept Gallery’, page 79/1, article 133:
133Barraclough, W. & Son, Halifax, Manu. — Specimens of striped lists, cloth, druggeting, padding, kerseys, linseys, tweed, house cloths, and table covers.
1857, John Askew, A voyage to Australia & New Zealand; including a visit to Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Hunter’s River, Newcastle, Maitland, and Auckland; with a summary of the progress and discoveries made in each colony from its founding to the present time: by a steerage passenger, John Askew, chapter iii, §§ 64–65: “Condition of the Working Man‥Climate”, 164:
The tents I saw in the vicinity of Melbourne were both elegant and comfortable. Some were neatly lined with druggetting, and had the greensward floor covered with carpets.
And next day Thorpe Castle was empty of all living souls but a few bored servants left behind, under old Mrs. Hadley, to cover the carpets with druggetting and drape with white dustcloths pianos and chairs and pictures, as dead as a horny chrysalis from which the butterfly has flown.
