Crossword clues for broadcloth
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Broadcloth \Broad"cloth\, n. A fine smooth-faced woolen cloth for men's garments, usually of double width (i.e., a yard and a half); -- so called in distinction from woolens three quarters of a yard wide.
Wiktionary
n. A fine smooth-faced woolen cloth for men’s garments, usually of double width (i.e., a yard and a half); -- so called in distinction from woolens three quarters of a yard wide.
WordNet
n. a densely textured woolen fabric with a lustrous finish
a closely woven silk or synthetic fabric with a narrow crosswise rib
Wikipedia
Broadcloth is a dense, plain woven cloth, historically made of wool. Today, most broadcloth is cotton or a cotton blend. The defining characteristic of Broadcloth is not its finished width, but the fact that it was woven much wider (typically 50 - 75% wider than its finished width) and then heavily milled (traditionally the cloth was worked by heavy wooden trip hammers in hot soapy water in order to shrink it) in order to reduce it to the required width. The effect of the milling process is to draw the yarns much closer together than could be achieved in the loom and allow the individual fibres of the wool to bind together in a felting process. This results in a dense, blind, face cloth with a stiff drape which is highly weather-resistant, hard wearing and capable of taking a cut edge without the need for being hemmed.
It was made in several parts of England at the end of the medieval period. The raw material was short staple wool, carded and spun into yarn and then woven on a broad loom to produce cloth 1.75 yards wide. It was then fulled, usually in a fulling mill. When fulled, the fibres of the cloth would felt together, resulting in a smooth surface.
Usage examples of "broadcloth".
Ranchers from remoter parts of the country appeared: Garnett, from the Ruby rancho, Keast, from the ranch of the same name, Gethings, of the San Pablo, Chattern, of the Bonanza, and others and still others, a score of them--elderly men, for the most part, bearded, slow of speech, deliberate, dressed in broadcloth.
Near the top I stumbled upon something soft, and, by a flash of lightning, saw between my feet a heap of black broadcloth and a pair of boots.
Off came the cropped, tight-fitting broadcloth jacket of her blue-grey travelling costume, off came the high, white lawn fichu swathing her throat, off came the earrings, heavy bracelets and pointed grey kid slippers.
Daniel Jones, at the sign of the hat and helmet, offers to supply officers with scarlet broadcloth, gold-lace for hats and waistcoats, cockades, and other military foppery, allowing credit until the payrolls shall be made up.
The young men were especially pinched as to their expansive chests, the broadcloth coming much too short at this point, and shrugging up oddly enough at the shoulders, while the phenomenally slick arrangement of their hair was calculated to produce a depressing effect on the mind of the observer.
His hair powdered, he wore a dress sword, white silk stockings, shoes with silver buckles, and a suit of the same brown Hartford broadcloth that Adams, too, was wearing for the occasion.
He looked rather to be an old courtier handed down from the reign of Charles, and re-attired in a modern suit of fine, but raveling and seam-worn, broadcloth.
You have broke up my pantaloons, my vest, and my neck-tie, you have ground me down onto plain broadcloth, but in the matter of whiskers I am firm!
Tom, therefore, in his well-brushed broadcloth suit, smooth beaver, glossy boots, faultless wristbands and collar, with his grave, good-natured black face, looked respectable enough to be a Bishop of Carthage, as men of his color were, in other ages.
A sturdily built woman in a decent brown broadcloth dress over neat, unbleached linen was hauling water from a well and looked at us with a challenge in her eyes when we stopped.
Their clothes were mostly leather, black and brown with only rare touches of color, covered with cloaks of fur and crudely tanned skins rather than the good broadcloth that a true patron provides.
He wore a coat of dark green broadcloth trimmed in black velvet, buff-colored breeches, and black boots.
Clad in tight-fitting black breeches, soft black leather boots, a white shirt, and a black broadcloth coat trimmed in black satin, he looked every inch a gentleman of quality and wealth.
Ty nodded that the tall man in the broadcloth suit was his ancestor, or so his father had told him.
Folger went below and returned with a new suit of stout blue broadcloth on his arm.