You know how in the Middle Ages, local cottage industries in a particular place specialized in weaving a particular type of cloth? And that type of cloth was named after the city it came from? I was wondering if a complete list of these can be found.
I can think of:
buckram < Bukhara
calico < Kozhikode (formerly Calicut, India)
damask < Damascus
denim < Nîmes
duffel < Duffel (Belgium)
jean < Genoa
lawn < Laon
madras < Madras (nowadays renamed Chennai)
muslin < Mosul
satin < some place name in China rendered in Arabic as Zaytûn
Tabby < French tabis, from Old French atabis, from Medieval Latin attab, from Arabic ‘attb, after al-‘Attbya, a suburb of Baghdad, Iraq.
(http://www.bartleby.com/61/18/T0001800.html)
Good call, Finagle, but your C&P off of Bartleby lost the long vowels in ‘Attâb and ‘Attâbî.
I’m an Arabic linguist as well as a copy editor; I get paid to notice things like this.
Bartleby’s online rendition of the AHD is very cool, but be aware they use teeny image files instead of text characters to represent letters with macrons and other diacritics.
Kersey
Etymology: Middle English, from Kersey, England
Date: 14th century
1 a : a coarse ribbed woolen cloth for hose and work clothes b : a heavy wool or wool and cotton fabric used especially for uniforms and coats
gauze ?< Gaza, Palestine
kenting < Kent, England
penistone < Penistone, Yorkshire, England
russel ?< Rijssel, the Dutch name for Lille, France
shalloon < Chalons-sur-Marne, France
tulle < Tulle, France
worsted < Worstead, Norfolk, England
That last one surprised me. I had no idea it was named after a place.
PS: This expands into the larger question of what trade items did specific cities/regions specialize in, such that their placename became used to describe the trade item? Plenty of examples in food (sausages named after German or Italian towns, English towns for cheeses), rugs (each town in Persia has a rug style, it seems), and countless other items (e.g., Damascus for steel, etc…)
These are not types of fabric, but a local colour used to dye woollen cloth: Lincoln Green, Coventry Blue and Yorkshire Grey (but then I don’t think Paisley is a fabric so much as the distinctive pattern used to decorate it).