The Collaborative International Dictionary
Brussels \Brus"sels\, n. A city of Belgium, giving its name to a kind of carpet, a kind of lace, etc.
Brussels carpet, a kind of carpet made of worsted yarn fixed in a foundation web of strong linen thread. The worsted, which alone shows on the upper surface in drawn up in loops to form the pattern.
Brussels ground, a name given to the handmade ground of real Brussels lace. It is very costly because of the extreme fineness of the threads.
Brussels lace, an expensive kind of lace of several varieties, originally made in Brussels; as, Brussels point, Brussels ground, Brussels wire ground.
Brussels net, an imitation of Brussels ground, made by machinery.
Brussels point. See Point lace.
Brussels sprouts (Bot.), a plant of the Cabbage family, which produces, in the axils of the upright stem, numerous small green heads, or ``sprouts,'' each a cabbage in miniature, of one or two inches in diameter; the thousand-headed cabbage.
Brussels wire ground, a ground for lace, made of silk, with meshes partly straight and partly arched.
Carpet \Car"pet\ (k[aum]r"p[e^]t), n. [OF. carpite rug, soft of cloth, F. carpette coarse packing cloth, rug (cf. It. carpita rug, blanket), LL. carpeta, carpita, woolly cloths, fr. L. carpere to pluck, to card (wool); cf. Gr. karpo`s fruit, E. Harvest.]
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A heavy woven or felted fabric, usually of wool, but also of cotton, hemp, straw, etc.; esp. a floor covering made in breadths to be sewed together and nailed to the floor, as distinguished from a rug or mat; originally, also, a wrought cover for tables.
Tables and beds covered with copes instead of carpets and coverlets.
--T. Fuller. -
A smooth soft covering resembling or suggesting a carpet. ``The grassy carpet of this plain.'' --Shak. Carpet beetle or Carpet bug (Zo["o]l.), a small beetle ( Anthrenus scrophulari[ae]), which, in the larval state, does great damage to carpets and other woolen goods; -- also called buffalo bug. Carpet knight.
A knight who enjoys ease and security, or luxury, and has not known the hardships of the field; a hero of the drawing room; an effeminate person.
--Shak.-
One made a knight, for some other than military distinction or service.
Carpet moth (Zo["o]l.), the larva of an insect which feeds on carpets and other woolen goods. There are several kinds. Some are the larv[ae] of species of Tinea (as Tinea tapetzella); others of beetles, esp. Anthrenus.
Carpet snake (Zo["o]l.), an Australian snake. See Diamond snake, under Diamond.
Carpet sweeper, an apparatus or device for sweeping carpets.
To be on the carpet, to be under consideration; to be the subject of deliberation; to be in sight; -- an expression derived from the use of carpets as table cover.
Brussels carpet. See under Brussels.
Usage examples of "brussels carpet".
Sickles got to his feet and began to pace the small room, whose worn Brussels carpet was as full of holes as the case Sickles had taken on.
A threadbare patch of Brussels carpet swarmed with roses and lilies, amid a desert of colorless drugget.
The contents of servants' rooms, piles of excellent bed-linen, Turkey carpet -- worn but with many a year left in it -- stair carpets and gleaming brass stair-rods for those who can still persuade maidservants to polish them, sixty-eight yards of Brussels carpet from an upstairs corridor, long runs of magazines for decades out of publication, lowly po-boxes from the domestic quarters, a cheval-glass at which the ser.
Crimm's heavy perfume entered the room, and her bedroom slippers whispered across the Brussels carpet.
There was a good Brussels carpet on the floor, rich in dull red and lemon shades, and representing large jardinieres filled with gorgeous, impossible flowers.
Turkish rugs and no carpets at all, except a Brussels carpet in the front parlour--I hear they call it the 'reception-room.
It was a stuffy little parlor with a Brussels carpet and stiff chairs covered with dark red plush.