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

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

The house, with origins in the 15th Century, belonged to textile, fashion and retail entrepreneur Laura Ashley and her husband Bernard and owned by the family until his death in 2009.

From BBC ● Oct. 15, 2026

According to Olawuyi, that extra warmth helped covered plants reach the fruiting stage earlier than plants grown without the textile.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 1, 2026

While studying management to help his family's textile business, he attended an aviation seminar and caught what he later called the "aviation bug".

From Barron's ● Oct. 1, 2026

After all, it didn’t take much education to haul tobacco or push a few buttons on a machine in the textile mills.

From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson

His company, Faisaltex, headquartered in his home city of Preston, was known for manufacturing textiles, such as socks and nighties, which it supplied to retailers.

From BBC ● Oct. 24, 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

Researchers say the answer isn’t simply to swap one fiber for another, but to study and reduce impacts across textiles.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 24, 2026

The true level of poverty among North Carolina whites during the 1960s was extreme: nearly half of the manufacturing jobs in the state were in textiles, one of the lowest-paid segments of the industry.

From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson

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Related Words

• cloth
• fiber
• goods
• yarn

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