hound's tooth

¹ American  

noun

1. a pattern of broken or jagged checks, used on a variety of fabrics.

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hound's-tooth ² American  

[houndz-tooth] / ˈhaʊndzˌtuθ /

adjective

1. woven or printed with a pattern of broken or jagged checks.

   a hound's-tooth jacket.

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Etymology

Origin of hound's tooth¹

First recorded in 1935–40

Origin of hound's-tooth²

First recorded in 1955–60

Example Sentences

To earn it the investigators must appear every day to be clean as a hound’s tooth.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 15, 2017

Harding asked for time to think, ten minutes later announced that he was as clean as a hound's tooth.

From Time Magazine Archive

A "sense of Congress" resolution with no legal force, the code urges officials to be loyal, hardworking, fair, clean as a hound's tooth.

From Time Magazine Archive

Preferring hound's tooth jackets and mixed tweeds to ambassadorial tails, he would sooner talk on Scottish wild flowers and Chinese porcelains than on politics and policies.

From Time Magazine Archive

He was a cattle magnate of the modern sort; a big, viking-looking man, with a Yale degree, and with a record as clean as a hound's tooth.

From The Wreckers by Lynde, Francis