Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
watered silk
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ I looked down at the light blue watered silk.
▪ Its walls were ornately corniced in gold and papered in watered silk, a delicate bluebell colour.
▪ Jackie from Marriage Lines takes us through day and evening invitations embossed with clinking champagne flutes and bordered in watered silk.
▪ Lucy wore a petrol blue watered silk dress with matching velvet jacket and had hyacinth pips in her hair.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
watered silk
Tabby \Tab"by\, n.; pl. Tabbies. [F. tabis (cf. It. tab[`i], Sp. & Pg. tab['i], LL. attabi), fr. Ar. 'att[=a]b[=i], properly the name of a quarter of Bagdad where it was made, the quarter being named from the prince Attab, great grandson of Omeyya. Cf. Tobine.]
A kind of waved silk, usually called watered silk, manufactured like taffeta, but thicker and stronger. The watering is given to it by calendering.
A mixture of lime with shells, gravel, or stones, in equal proportions, with an equal proportion of water. When dry, this becomes as hard as rock.
--Weale.A brindled cat; hence, popularly, any cat.
An old maid or gossip. [Colloq.]
--Byron.