rayon
Americannoun
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rayons
plural
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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.
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fabric made of this filament.
adjective
noun
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any of a number of textile fibres made from wood pulp or other forms of cellulose
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any fabric made from such a fibre
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(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
Inside of her Hawaii room, where Barnett boasts having some of the first-ever rayon Hawaiian shirts, there’s even a closet stockpiled with tiki souvenirs, photos of Elvis Presley and decorative masks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2025
All contained cotton, in some cases mixed with other textiles such as spandex and rayon.
From Reuters ● Sep. 1, 2023
These tampons are made of cotton, rayon, or a blend of both ingredients.
From Salon ● Jun. 22, 2022
But rayon is both natural and artificial, being made from wood.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
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
For Rhodia fabrics, Leuenroth photographed Brazilian models wearing Rhodia clothes in Rome and Tokyo to convince women that Brazilian-made rayons and cottons are as smart as imports.
From Time Magazine Archive
Beginning in 1922 the market for Amoskeag's coarse cottons, ginghams, denims and flannels shrank rapidly as the new market for rayons grew.
From Time Magazine Archive
Brown Co. makes a Solka pulp used as raw material for rayons.
From Time Magazine Archive
Her eyes, so like the falling sterns, Seen on an August night, Had surely won from eastern sun Some rayons of his light.
From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. by Alexander Leighton
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.
