textile

American  

[teks-tahyl, -til] / ˈtɛks taɪl, -tɪl /

noun

• textiles
  plural

1. any cloth or goods produced by weaving, knitting, or felting.

2. a material, as a fiber or yarn, used in or suitable for weaving.

   Glass can be used as a textile.

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adjective

1. woven or capable of being woven.

   textile fabrics.

2. of or relating to weaving.

3. of or relating to textiles or the production of textiles.

   the textile industry.

textile British  

/ ˈtɛkstaɪl /

noun

1. any fabric or cloth, esp woven

2. raw material suitable to be made into cloth; fibre or yarn

3. a non-nudist, as described by nudists; one who wears clothes

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adjective

1. of or relating to fabrics or the making of fabrics

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• textiles
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of textile

1520–30; < Latin textilis woven, textile (noun use of neuter) woven fabric, equivalent to text ( us ), past participle of texere to weave + -ilis, -ile -ile

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Explanation

A textile is something made by knitting, weaving, or crocheting fibers together. A textile is a cloth. You’re probably wearing a textile right now! Textile comes from the Latin word, textilis for "woven fabric” and that's exactly what it is. If you’re in the textile business, you’re dealing with the stuff that gets turned into clothes, flags, dishrags, or anything else made of cloth. If you knit a scarf, you create a hand-made textile — although the word is more often used in art or industry, as in textile design or textile imports.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

textile textiles

Many of the pages also suggest Patel has links to Preston and worked in the textile industry.

From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2026

Instead, he’s in Sweden, raising two boys, working as a quality control inspector for a textile company and playing amateur soccer for a team in the country’s fifth division.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026

He had expected to join the family textile business and pursued a course in textile engineering and another in management.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026

A newly developed textile covering helped strawberry plants produce more than three times as much fruit in tunnel field trials, while showing no harmful effects on plant health.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 1, 2026

This was East Durham, an area of run-down houses built around the turn of the century by the textile manufacturers for their workers.

From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson

Cryptocurrency heists have become North Korea’s most lucrative and vital revenue stream, replacing exports of coal and textiles that have been crippled by global sanctions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2026

Mohammed Arman has been working in the textiles industry in Bangalore for 10 years.

From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2026

The EU's trade enforcement chief, Denis Redonnet, said sectors facing "sustained and abnormal" import increases included machinery, textiles, basic metals and chemicals.

From Barron's ● Oct. 5, 2026

Ali likes to use expansive spaces and incorporate fabrics and textiles, whether it’s a red, sequin-covered chador or a tubular-looking worm made out of polyester, Lycra and spandex.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2026

She watched the bored-looking merchants inside their tiny stalls, smoking, or spitdng into brass spittoons, their faces emerging from the shadows now and then to peddle textiles and fur-collared poostin coats to passersby.

From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini

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Related Words

• cloth
• fiber
• goods
• yarn

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