Crossword clues for chintz
chintz
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Chintz \Chintz\, n.; pl. Chintzes. [Hindi ch[=i]nt spotted
cotton clooth, ch[=i]nt[=a] spot.]
Cotton cloth, printed with flowers and other devices, in a
number of different colors, and often glazed.
--Swift.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1719, plural of chint (1610s), from Hindi chint, from Sanskrit chitra-s "clear, bright" (compare cheetah). The plural (the more common form of the word in commercial use) became regarded as singular by late 18c., and for unknown reason shifted -s to -z; perhaps after quartz. Disparaging sense, from the commonness of the fabric, is first recorded 1851 in George Eliot (in chintzy).
Wiktionary
n. A painted or stained calico fabric, originally produced in India, and known for its brightly colored designs.
WordNet
n. a brightly printed and glazed cotton fabric
Wikipedia
Chintz (from the plural of chint) was originally glazed calico textiles, initially specifically those imported from India, printed with designs featuring flowers and other patterns in different colours, typically on a light plain background. Since the 19th century the term has also been used for the style of floral decoration developed in those calico textiles, but then used more widely, for example on chintzware pottery and wallpaper. Chintz designs are mostly European patterns loosely derived from the style of Indian designs themselves reflecting, via Mughal art, decorative traditions in Islamic art such as the arabesque, and especially the Safavid art of Persia.
Unglazed calico was traditionally called " cretonne". The word calico is derived from the name of the Indian city Calicut (Kozhikkode in native Malayalam) to which it had a manufacturing association. In contemporary language the word "chintz" and "chintzy" can be used to refer to clothing or furnishings which are vulgar or florid in appearance, and commonly in informal speech, to refer to cheap, low quality, or gaudy things, including personal behavior.
Usage examples of "chintz".
She wandered about the room, studying the portraits and landscapes upon the walls, touching the veneered tables, the elegant chairs, the elaborately draped Chinoiserie chintz curtains.
Still, the poppy and cornflower chintz was cheerful, and the vase of pearly-white honesty seedcases looked very well against the peach-coloured wall.
Laura Ashley type, she was not afflicted by a deep nostalgia for all the pale chintz cushions and Blue Willowware china and manicured cricket lawns that had never been in the first place.
At the windows were curtains of laughing chintz and pots of pink geranium.
But Iggy knew better because at that moment she saw Chintz wink at Germ, her green dagger eyes reflected in the puddle of tears by her feet.
Padded and pelmetted curtains and silk lampshades and Staffordshire china dogs all spoke of enough money somewhere in the past, but the holes in the worn flowery chintz sofa covers were truer of the present.
They had tea out, at a dear little teashop, all chintz and flowered china, a fitting background for the paper-thin sandwiches and cakes oozing cream.
It had an old-world charm, a lot of chintz and the same waitresses year after year.
Eaton Square front door as I braked to a halt and came across the pavement with a spring in her step, an evocation of summer in a flower-patterned jacket over cream trousers, the chintz band holding back the fluffy hair.
Bim playing ball on the chintz in the sea when the Sunshine crossed the barrier and came on.
It was a livable kind of room, with built-in bookshelves and plenty of ashtrays and not too fancy chintz covers on the chairs, a pleasant compromise between interior decorating and masculine comfort.
Although they're not really bedroomy, I've never been very good with flowered chintz.
The sofa and matching armchairs were of bright floral chintz, the coffee table and end tables of maple, with the blockiness of early-American furniture popular during the fifties.
The chintzes were faded, and next to a wing chair an Oriental rug showed a large hole.
She suspected that if her father hadn't been in such a hurry to move them out of London he would have waited until something more modern came on the market, but as it was he had bought this pretty half timbered Cheshire farmhouse with its large gardens and its wonderful aspects over the surrounding countryside, and gradually over the years Hazel had put her stamp on it, had brought it to life with all her gentleness and artistic skill, so that people coming into it for the first time caught their breath in pleasure as they studied its colour-washed rooms with their faded chintzes and brocades, its air of homeliness and comfort, its gentle warning welcome to everyone who walked into it.