Bayeux tapestry

American  

[bey-yoo, bah-, ba-yœ] / beɪˈyu, bɑ-, baˈyœ /

noun

1. a strip of embroidered linen 231 feet (70 meters) long and 20 inches (50 centimeters) wide, depicting the Norman conquest of England and dating from around 1100.

---

Bayeux tapestry British  

noun

1. an 11th- or 12th-century embroidery in Bayeux, nearly 70.5 m (231 ft) long by 50 cm (20 inches) high, depicting the Norman conquest of England

---

Etymology

Origin of Bayeux tapestry

After Bayeux, France, the town in which it was made

Example Sentences

Cullinan said they "send and receive thousands of loans each year - including ancient frescoes and textiles which are older than the Bayeux tapestry".

From BBC • Jan. 14, 2026

Perhaps the trip the Anglo-Saxon noble Harold takes to Normandy in the early scenes of the Bayeux tapestry is more business than pleasure, but whatever his plans, they are wrecked.

From The Guardian • Jan. 19, 2018

She created something new in the world of contemporary biography, writing the life stories and afterlives of iconic works of art such as the Bayeux tapestry and the stained-glass windows of King's College Chapel, Cambridge.

From The Guardian • Jul. 27, 2010

For all we know, the Pyramids might have been designed by women, and the Bayeux tapestry almost certainly was; but ever since art history began to be systematically written, its heroes have all been men.

From Time Magazine Archive

The shields of the riders are oblong; their tilting spears pointless; their conical helmets terminate in a nasal below, like the figures in the Bayeux tapestry.

From Architectural Antiquities of Normandy by Cotman, John Sell