oilcloth
Americannoun
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a cotton fabric made waterproof by being treated with oil and pigment, for use as tablecloths, shelf coverings, and the like.
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a piece of this fabric.
noun
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waterproof material made by treating one side of a cotton fabric with a drying oil, or a synthetic resin
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another name for linoleum
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of oilcloth
Explanation
Oilcloth is a type of cotton fabric that has a waterproof layer on one side. You'd be more likely to buy a tablecloth made of oilcloth than a dress. Your grandmother might have a brightly colored oilcloth on her kitchen table: it feels smooth as plastic on the top, but the bottom is nubby or soft, absorbent cotton. Oilcloth was once commonly used to make rain coats and tents, but its seams were never totally waterproof, so it was replaced by waxed canvas and other materials. Oilcloth got its name from the boiled linseed oil coating used to make it waterproof.
Vocabulary lists containing oilcloth
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:
“Swap out the linen cloth for a wipeable oilcloth when it’s time for the kids to do homework or an art project,” she advises.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 7, 2023
Apart from the boiler, other items on the tank include an oilcloth table cloth from the family's summer house, new Disney bedsheets for her children and a red blanket, she says.
From BBC ● May 31, 2022
Spiotta and I sat in a diner in Cooperstown, a road atlas open on the apple-print oilcloth.
From New York Times ● Feb. 16, 2016
Afterward, he mopped the oilcloth clean and took down the Hebrew books with their crumbling leather spines.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 28, 2013
Wrapped in a long oilcloth coat, the man was perched on one of the pilings like some enormous vulture with old scars crisscrossing his cracked lips.
From "The Reader" by Traci Chee
We had only the clothes we stood in, and no bed-clothing but the camels' pads and two oilcloths.
From A Source Book of Australian History by Swinburne, Gwendolen H.
Officers had had a hard day; they slept perhaps somewhat soundly, wrapped in their oilcloths, in the chilly rain, by the smallest of sputtering camp-fires.
From The Long Roll by Johnston, Mary
All along there was underfoot much of soldiers' impedimenta—knapsacks, belts, accoutrements of all kinds, rolled blankets and oilcloths, canteens.
From The Long Roll by Johnston, Mary
In addition our party was provided with oilcloths for the better protection of the stores, and with mosquito netting.
From The Red Miriok by Barnes, Anna M.
Some examined knapsack and haversacks, good oilcloths, belts, rolled blankets, canteens, cartridge-boxes and cartridges, picked up upon the road.
From The Long Roll by Johnston, Mary
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.
