What is "madapolam"

n. A soft cotton fabric manufactured from fine yarns.

Madapolam is a soft cotton fabric manufactured from fine yarns with a dense pick laid out in linen weave. Madapolam is used as an embroidery and handkerchief fabric and as a base for fabric printing. The equal warp and weft mean that the tensile strength and shrinkage is the same in any two directions at right angles and that the fabric absorbs liquids such as ink, paint and aircraft dope equally along its X and Y axes.

It was used as the covering for the de Havilland Mosquito a pioneer of monocoque aircraft airframe construction, and in other aircraft, tautened and stiffened with aircraft dope.

"Madapollam" is the name of a village near Narsapur, West Godavari, Andhra Pradesh, India, where the British had a cloth factory.