tapestry
Americannoun
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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:
In the process, McElwee creates a patchwork tapestry, comprised of vignettes across time.
From Salon ● Jul. 24, 2026
For Osborne, the tapestry tells a story of destruction and invasion, but also of two nations, two peoples, forever entwined.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
"There is no evidence that there is any damage to the tapestry whatsoever. It has travelled really well," he added.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
Harold joins William, duke of Normandy, in battle in Brittany, and is portrayed in a positive light for the first half of the tapestry.
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
When she finished, it looked so real I almost thought I could reach into the tapestry, pluck an apple, and take a bite.
From "Rump: The (Fairly) True Story of Rumpelstilskin" by Liesl Shurtliff
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
The Battle of Pavia, a pivotal encounter during a series of wars fought for control of the Italian peninsula between 1494 and 1559, was vividly portrayed in seven huge tapestries presented to Charles in 1531.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 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
The ceiling, outfitted with colorful, cloth tapestries designed to move with the wind, aims to create less friction between indoor and outdoor environments.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 4, 2026
Aunt Melissa’s bedroom is super cluttered but also kind of cute, with ceramic figurines and knit tapestries covering every inch of the sun-soaked room.
From "South of Somewhere" by Kalena Miller
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 Lowell, Percival
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.
