batiste

English

Etymology

From French batiste, a form of Baptiste, of disputed origin (“according to Littré and Scheler from the alleged original maker, Baptiste of Cambray; according to others, from its use in wiping the heads of children after baptism” – OED).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /bəˈtiːst/
  • (file)
  • (file)

Noun

batiste (countable and uncountable, plural batistes)

  1. A fine cloth made from cotton or linen; cambric.
    • 1916, “Smocking”, in The Dressmaker: A Complete Book on All Matters Connected with Sewing and Dressmaking [], 2nd revised and enlarged edition, New York, N.Y., London: The Butterick Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 29:
      Smocking done in colors on fine white batiste, silk mull, or nainsook makes pretty guimpes and dresses for children and very smart blouses for women.
    • 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 104
      Clad in a Persian-Renaissance gown and a widow's tiara of white batiste, Mrs Thoroughfare, in all the ferment of a Marriage-Christening, left her chamber on vapoury autumn day and descending a few stairs, and climbing a few others, knocked a trifle brusquely at her son's wife's door.
    • 1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada or Ardor, Penguin, published 2011, page 88:
      He had started to stroke her, shivering, staring ahead, following with a blind man's hand the dip of her spine through the batiste.

Translations

Anagrams

French

Pronunciation

  • (file)

Noun

batiste f (plural batistes)

  1. cambric

Descendants

  • Russian: батист (batist)

Further reading

Italian

Noun

batiste f

  1. plural of batista

Anagrams

Spanish

Verb

batiste

  1. second-person singular preterite indicative of batir
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