tapestry
Americannoun
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tapestries
plural
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a fabric consisting of a warp upon which colored threads are woven by hand to produce a design, often pictorial, used for wall hangings, furniture coverings, etc.
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a machine-woven reproduction of this.
verb (used with object)
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to furnish, cover, or adorn with tapestry.
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to represent or depict in a tapestry.
noun
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a heavy ornamental fabric, often in the form of a picture, used for wall hangings, furnishings, etc, and made by weaving coloured threads into a fixed warp
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another word for needlepoint
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a colourful and complicated situation
the rich tapestry of London life
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of tapestry
1400–50; late Middle English tapst ( e ) ry, tapistry < Middle French tapisserie carpeting. See tapis, -ery
Explanation
A tapestry is a picture woven into cloth. It's a decorative rug you hang on the wall, with detailed images or designs on it. Some tapestries, like the famous Unicorn Tapestries, tell stories with their pictures. Weaving an image into cloth is a brilliant idea — it makes art accessible and portable. And a tapestry offers something a painting can't: warmth. Think of those cold castle walls in medieval Europe, add a tapestry, and you're warmer already. You can use tapestry to describe anything that's multi-layered and complex, like the tapestry of life in a rural town, or the tapestry of your family history, or the tapestry of plot and character in your favorite novel.
Vocabulary lists containing tapestry
"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
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Other Words for Home
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Medieval Europe - Introductory
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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:
Probably designed and made soon after 1066 at Canterbury, it is not a true tapestry, but an embroidered narrative, and the oldest and most complete one we have.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2026
Adrian Harris told BBC News that it was a "real privilege" to be one of the first members of the public to see the tapestry in England.
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026
Depicting the 1066 Battle of Hastings and the invasion by William the Conqueror's Norman army, the tapestry has shadowy origins.
From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026
Initially declared a success with "no visible alteration" to the 70-metre-long tapestry following its arrival, France last week said two broken threads were spotted during a full condition check.
From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026
It was science he was after—traces of science, anyway, like dust shaken from a tapestry of wonder.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
Feldman hopes the exhibition, which spans fine-line drawings of entangled lovers and radiant topographical tapestries, will complicate that familiar account.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 21, 2026
Conceived as designs for tapestries, they are also, like so many of Matisse’s preparatory studies, self-sufficient artworks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
“When you walk through, you won’t see boxes. You’ll see vases, tapestries, ceramics and more.”
From Los Angeles Times ● May 10, 2026
Highlights include the first painting he completed entirely on his own, as well as tapestries designed for the Sistine Chapel.
From Barron's ● Mar. 27, 2026
Whenever she hesitated, Annabeth called out encouragement and reminded her how wonderful her tapestries would look on Mount Olympus.
From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan
The showiest destination of all is table 56, a dome-shaped tapestried booth.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 7, 2020
The film academy took the backdrop from the “Fit as a Fiddle” number in “Singin’ in the Rain,” the eerie landscape of “Forbidden Planet,” the tapestried walls of “Marie Antoinette,” the office from “Adam’s Rib.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 20, 2019
Their music echoes among the buttresses of the Hall’s ceiling, and dies in the tapestried dimness beyond our tables where the servants come and go.
From Salon ● Jun. 8, 2019
A wedding party of Africans and African-Americans tripped through, decked to the nines, some in gleaming white linen and tapestried skull caps.
From New York Times ● May 8, 2015
I stopped to watch as two men carried out a tapestried sofa and loaded it into the back of a large delivery truck.
From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu
Trees vaulted the way tapestrying it with their leaves, between which one caught peeps at the sea, a shimmer of blue through a shimmer of green.
From Noto: an Unexplained Corner of Japan by Percival Lowell
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.
