linen

[lin-uh n]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR linen ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

fabric woven from flax yarns.

Often linens. bedding, tablecloths, shirts, etc., made of linen cloth or a more common substitute, as cotton.

yarn made of flax fiber.

thread made of flax yarns.

adjective

made of linen: a linen jacket.

Idioms

wash one's dirty linen in public, to discuss in public one's private scandals, disagreements, or difficulties.

Origin of linen

before 900; Middle English lin(n)en (noun, adj.), Old English linnen, līnen (adj.) made of flax, equivalent to līn flax (< Latin līnum; see line²) + -en -en²

Related formslin·en·y, adjectivehalf-lin·en, adjectiveun·der·lin·en, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for linen

cloth, bedding, lingerie, lawn, thread, paper, damask, napery, cambric, brabant, dornick, toile

Examples from the Web for linen

Contemporary Examples of linen

Davis jumped over a 4-foot porch wall and ran into a house, where he and others crammed themselves into a linen closet.
‘Argo’ in the Congo: The Ghosts of the Stanleyville Hostage Crisis
Nina Strochlic
November 23, 2014
The edges of the elegant paper are crackled; the ink bled into the linen weave long ago and has not faded.
How Gettysburg Did Not Unlock the Past
Laird Hunt
September 21, 2014
A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life.
What We Can Learn From Rioting in Sweden
Megan McArdle
May 28, 2013
The Greeks and Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably though they had no linen.
What We Can Learn From Rioting in Sweden
Megan McArdle
May 28, 2013
Still, traces of her old life—the Glock in her linen closet, for one—linger.
This Week’s Hot Reads: Oct. 15, 2012
Mythili Rao
October 15, 2012

Historical Examples of linen

He was naked save for a linen under shirt and pair of woollen drawers.
The White Company
Arthur Conan Doyle
Did she wish to say that she was grateful to him for having helped her in recovering the linen?
The Dream
Emile Zola
"To seek the linen for the new sheets, but it was not ready," she answered glibly.
Fair Margaret
H. Rider Haggard
And the linen I shall deposit, in pursuance of your kind hint, cannot be missed.
Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9)
Samuel Richardson
Pick them from the stalks, and squeeze them through a linen bag.
Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches
Eliza Leslie

British Dictionary definitions for linen

linen

noun

a hard-wearing fabric woven from the spun fibres of flax
(as modifier)a linen tablecloth

yarn or thread spun from flax fibre

clothes, sheets, tablecloths, etc, made from linen cloth or from a substitute such as cotton

See linen paper

Word Origin for linen

Old English linnen, ultimately from Latin līnum flax, line ²

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for linen

"cloth from woven flax," early 14c.; earlier as an adjective, "made of flax" (c.1200), from Old English linin (adj.) "made of flax," from lin "flax, linen thread, cloth," from West Germanic *linam (cf. Old Saxon, Old Norse, Old High German lin "flax, linen," German Leinen "linen," Gothic lein "linen cloth"), probably an early borrowing from Latin linum "flax, linen," which, along with Greek linon is from a non-IE language.

Idioms and Phrases with linen

linen

see wash one's dirty linen in public.