Skip to content

tapestry

noun

  1. woven artwork
L43642 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˈtæpəstɹi/

noun

Etymology: From Middle English tapestrie, from Old French tapisserie (“tapestry”), from Ancient Greek τάπης (tápēs), from an Iranian source.

  1. A heavy woven cloth, often with decorative pictorial designs, normally hung on walls.

    Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine, while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry-hung wall behind.

  2. Anything with variegated or complex details.

    European adventurers found themselves within a watery world, a tapestry of streams, channels, wetlands, lakes and lush riparian meadows enriched by floodwaters from the Mississippi River.

verb

Etymology: From Middle English tapestrie, from Old French tapisserie (“tapestry”), from Ancient Greek τάπης (tápēs), from an Iranian source.

  1. To decorate with tapestry, or as if with a tapestry.

    We had run above twenty miles when the sun set, carpeting the sea, and tapestrying the sky with a rare unison of delicate green and golden hues […]

    The banqueting-hall, all open to the sky, and with thick curtains of ivy tapestrying the walls, and grass and weeds growing on the arches that overpass it, is indescribably beautiful.