rayon
Americannoun
-
rayons
plural
-
a regenerated, semisynthetic textile filament made from cellulose, cotton linters, or wood chips by treating these with caustic soda and carbon disulfide and passing the resultant solution, viscose, through spinnerets.
-
fabric made of this filament.
adjective
noun
-
any of a number of textile fibres made from wood pulp or other forms of cellulose
-
any fabric made from such a fibre
-
(modifier) consisting of or involving rayon
a rayon shirt
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of rayon
First recorded in 1920–25; apparently based on ray 1
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:
Recycling textiles can be particularly tricky because a lot of clothing is made from a blend of materials from polyester—which is derived from oil—to cotton, rayon and nylon.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
It left a scorched black mark on his orange rayon shirt that made him look like a superhero.
From Salon ● Jul. 3, 2026
It also had splashes of color: a gentle yellow, a rusty orange, a light brown and a mossy green, in the form of rayon fabrics made by Dupont covering the walls.
From New York Times ● Jan. 25, 2024
All contained cotton, in some cases mixed with other textiles such as spandex and rayon.
From Reuters ● Sep. 1, 2023
Wrapped in a rayon robe and without her glasses, she looked unreal yet kind, like the man who had picked his pocket a short while ago.
From "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison
Even though I don’t have too many ’30s and ’40s, ’50s items, the items that I do have — I love the fabrics, the rayons.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 7, 2022
Three years ago he set his research chief, Everett Nutter, to developing a new cloth to meet the hot competition of rayons and tropical worsteds.
From Time Magazine Archive
Velvets, transparent and patterned; chiffons and rayons shot through with metal threads; woolens ingeniously woven through with small wisps of feathers.
From Time Magazine Archive
Brown Co. makes a Solka pulp used as raw material for rayons.
From Time Magazine Archive
Summer's Day," thus refers to them:— "The rayons of the sunne we see Diminish in their strength; The shade of everie tower and tree, Extended is in length.
From In the Border Country by W. S.
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
