damask

EnglishEdit

WOTD – 15 January 2010

EtymologyEdit

English Wikipedia has an article on:

damask

From Middle English damaske, from Medieval Latin damascus, named after the city Damascus, where the fabric was originally made.

PronunciationEdit

(UK, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdæm.əsk/

NounEdit

damask (countable and uncountable, plural damasks)

An ornate silk fabric originating from Damascus.
True damasks are pure silk.
- 1836, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers
  […] but what struck Tom's fancy most was a strange, grim-looking, high backed chair, carved in the most fantastic manner, with a flowered damask cushion, and the round knobs at the bottom of the legs carefully tied up in red cloth, as if it had got the gout in its toes.
Linen so woven that a pattern is produced by the different directions of the thread, without contrast of colour.
A heavy woolen or worsted stuff with a pattern woven in the same way as the linen damask; made for furniture covering and hangings.
- 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., 55 Fifth Avenue, [1933], OCLC 2666860, page 0016:
  
  Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.
Damascus steel; also, the peculiar markings or "water" of such steel.
A damask rose, Rosa × damascena.
A grayish-pink color, like that of the damask rose.
damask colour:
- 1849, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
  Thursday. D. certainly improved. Better night. Slight tinge of damask revisiting cheek.

TranslationsEdit

fabric

Bulgarian: дамаска f (damaska)
Catalan: domàs (ca) m
Chinese:
Mandarin: 緞子 (zh), 缎子 (zh) (duànzi)
Czech: damašek m
Danish: damask n
Dutch: damast (nl) n
Finnish: damasti (fi)
French: damas (fr)
German: Damast (de) m, Damastgewebe n
Greek: δαμάσκο (el) n (damásko)
Hungarian: damaszt (hu)
Irish: damasc m
Italian: damasco (it) m
Japanese: 絢緞子 (あやどんす, ayadonsu)
Kazakh: қамқа (qamqa)

Macedonian: дамаст m (damast)
Norwegian: damask m
Persian: پرنیان‎ (fa) (parniyân), پرند‎ (fa) (parand)
Polish: adamaszek (pl) m
Portuguese: damasco (pt) m
Romanian: damasc (ro) n
Russian: дама́ст m (damást), камка́ (ru) f (kamká)
Serbo-Croatian: damast (sh) m
Slovene: damast m
Sorbian:
Lower Sorbian: damast m
Spanish: damasco (es) m
Swedish: damast (sv)
Tatar: камка (tt) (qamka)
Turkish: damasko (tr)
Ukrainian: дамаст m (damast)

damask rose — see damask rose

colour

Finnish: vaaleanpunainen (fi)
French: lie-de-vin (fr)

Japanese: ばら色 (ばらいろ, barairo)
Romanian: lie-de-vin

AdjectiveEdit

damask (comparative more damask, superlative most damask)

Of a grayish-pink color, like that of the damask rose.
- 1973, Stephen Sondheim, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
  My cage has many rooms / Damask and dark / Nothing there sings, / Not even my lark.
- 1602, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
  But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, / Feed on her damask cheek
- 1849, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
  They had a lurking suspicion even, that he died of secret love; though I must say there was a picture of him in the house with a damask nose, which concealment did not appear to have ever preyed upon.