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
There has been alarm from some, particularly in France, that the tapestry was too precious to move from there to the UK.
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
"It's our responsibility, this generation's responsibility, to do what previous generations have done, which is look after this tapestry so it's there for all time".
From BBC ● Jul. 17, 2026
But there's debate about whether the arrow was actually in the original version of the tapestry or added during a 19th Century restoration.
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
She slammed into a Norman narrative tapestry, bringing it tumbling down on top of her.
From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer
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
Some jackets and skirts featured gold fabric and tapestries.
From BBC ● Mar. 10, 2026
Small museums, looking to raise their profiles and educate the masses, are turning their paintings, sculptures and tapestries into the unlikely stars of TikTok microdramas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 14, 2025
Strickland studied the faded tapestries on the walls, the arched windows with their myriad diamond-shaped panes of red and white glass, the racks of spears and swords and war- hammers.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
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
In a maze of colour and guy-ropes, of tent-pegs and tall spears, of chessplayers and sutlers, of tapestried interiors and of gold plate, Arthur of England had sat down to starve his friend.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
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.
