linen
[lin-uh n]
- 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.
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- made of linen: a linen jacket.
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- wash one's dirty linen in public, to discuss in public one's private scandals, disagreements, or difficulties.
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Origin of linen
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for linen
Contemporary Examples
Davis jumped over a 4-foot porch wall and ran into a house, where he and others crammed themselves into a linen closet.
The edges of the elegant paper are crackled; the ink bled into the linen weave long ago and has not faded.
A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life.
The Greeks and Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably though they had no linen.
Still, traces of her old life—the Glock in her linen closet, for one—linger.
Historical Examples
He was naked save for a linen under shirt and pair of woollen drawers.
The White CompanyArthur Conan Doyle
Did she wish to say that she was grateful to him for having helped her in recovering the linen?
The DreamEmile Zola
"To seek the linen for the new sheets, but it was not ready," she answered glibly.
Fair MargaretH. 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 BranchesEliza Leslie
linen
- 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
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Word Origin
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
n.
"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.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Idioms and Phrases with linen
linen
see wash one's dirty linen in public.
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The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.