muslin

• muselin

From French mousseline, from Italian mussolina, from Mussolo (“Mosul”), that is Mosul in northern Iraq (compare 1875 Knight, Edward H., Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, V2 p1502: "Muslins are so called from Moussol in India.").

• IPA^(key): /ˈmʌz.lɪn/

muslin (usually uncountable, plural muslins)

1. (textile) Any of several varieties of thin cotton cloth.
   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 11, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     […] my pupils leave off their thick shoes and tight old tartan pelisses, and wear silk stockings and muslin frocks, as fashionable baronets' daughters should.

   • 1875, Edward H. Knight, Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, volume 2, page 1502:

     A bleached or unbleached thin white cotton cloth, unprinted and undyed. [Nineteen varieties are thereafter listed.]

   • 1906, Stanley J[ohn] Weyman, chapter I, in Chippinge Borough, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., →OCLC, page 01:

     It was April 22, 1831, and a young man was walking down Whitehall in the direction of Parliament Street. He wore shepherd's plaid trousers and the swallow-tail coat of the day, with a figured muslin cravat wound about his wide-spread collar.

2. (US) Fabric made of cotton, flax (linen), hemp, or silk, finely or coarsely woven.
   • 1875, Edward H. Knight, Knight's American Mechanical Dictionary, volume 2, pages 1502–1503:

     Other very different styles of fabric are now indifferently called muslins, and the term is used differently on the respective sides of the Atlantic.

3. Any of a wide variety of tightly-woven thin fabrics, especially those used for bedlinen.
4. (US) Woven cotton or linen fabrics, especially when used for items other than garments.
5. (countable) A dressmaker's pattern made from inexpensive cloth for fitting.
6. Any of several different moths, especially the muslin moth, Diaphora mendica.
7. Woman as sex object; prostitute, as in a bit of muslin.
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 51, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     "That was a pretty bit of muslin hanging on your arm—who was she?” asked the fascinating student.

• See “muslin”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• “muslin”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “muslin”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• Sumlin, ulmins, unslim

muslin n (plural muslinuri)

1. Alternative form of muselină