buckram
Americannoun
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a stiff cotton fabric for interlinings, book bindings, etc.
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stiffness of manner; extreme preciseness or formality.
verb (used with object)
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to strengthen with buckram.
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Archaic. to give a false appearance of importance, value, or strength to.
noun
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cotton or linen cloth stiffened with size, etc, used in lining or stiffening clothes, bookbinding, etc
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( as modifier )
a buckram cover
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archaic stiffness of manner
verb
Etymology
Origin of buckram
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English bokeram, buk(e)ram, from Old French bo(u)querant, Old Italian bucherame, perhaps from Middle High German buckeram, said to be named after Bukhara, once noted for textiles
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
They value efficiency and aesthetics above all other considerations, and they end up a graveyard of lost opportunities: How will the jacket or the obi interact with the buckram?
From Los Angeles Times ● May 17, 2023
Mrs. Beane made her hats the old-fashioned way, wetting buckram — a stiff cotton — into molds decorated with all manner of fabrics.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 25, 2022
Albums come with silk, linen, leather or buckram covers, and endless embossing options.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 13, 2017
It was made of buckram and silver fabric and sequins, but it was stiff and looked like the chrysalis of an insect which had vacated it.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 21, 2013
The frilled skirt was underpinned with buckram to make it flare.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
He was simply a man from whose reproof one shrank; in manner the least buckramed of mankind, he had, in serious moments, an extreme dignity of goodness.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 by Stevenson, Robert Louis
It was not so much a better principle as partly his natural good taste, and still more his buckramed habit of clerical decorum, that carried him safely through the latter crisis.
From The Scarlet Letter by Foote, Mary Hallock
On the contrary, to find himself arraigned and put on his defense by this tall, slim woman, erect and smartly buckramed in logic and whalebone, was preposterous!
From From Sand Hill to Pine by Harte, Bret
Marie Antoinette was not averse to a certain licence, which should banish for the time being the buckramed etiquette that she so loathed.
From The Maid of Honour, Vol. 1 (of 3) A Tale of the Dark Days of France by Wingfield, Lewis
A genuine little Poetess, buckramed, swathed like a mummy into Socinian and Political-Economy formulas; and yet verily alive in the inside of that!
From The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol. I by Carlyle, Thomas
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
