Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A closely woven cotton fabric used for sheets and clothing.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A kind of French cambric, very closely and firmly woven, with a round thread, and containing more dressing than ordinary muslin, but without the glossy finish of dress or lining cambrics, made either white or printed. The soft-finished percale is an English manufacture, of less body than the French percale.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A fine cotton fabric, having a linen finish, and often printed on one side, -- used for women's and children's wear, and for bedsheets.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A fine, closely woven
fabric , made fromcotton ,polyester or a mix of these, and used forsheets andclothing .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a fine closely woven cotton fabric
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Some folk confuse the term percale as being a blend of cotton and polyester.
xml's Blinklist.com 2008
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The term percale is actually used to describe the tightness of the weave with a thread count of two hundred being the minimum standard.
xml's Blinklist.com 2008
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When you say the word percale, many think it is a type of fabric.
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Mrs.X. and you occupy a very light bed, which has a tall canopy of red "percale;" the windows are smartly draped with cheap gaudy calicoes and muslins; there are little mean strips of carpet about the tiled floor of the room, and yet all seems as gay and as comfortable as may be -- the sun shines brighter than you have seen it for a year, the sky is a thousand times bluer, and what a cheery clatter of shrill quick French voices comes up from the court-yard under the windows!
The Paris Sketch Book William Makepeace Thackeray 1837
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Especially because if they had actually asked invited guests for two sets of 300-thread-count percale bedding or a dozen stemless wine glasses, for example, that would have been potentially awkward.
Meredith C. Carroll: New Royal Wedding Details Unveiled Meredith C. Carroll 2011
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Especially because if they had actually asked invited guests for two sets of 300-thread-count percale bedding or a dozen stemless wine glasses, for example, that would have been potentially awkward.
Meredith C. Carroll: New Royal Wedding Details Unveiled Meredith C. Carroll 2011
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Their print Ikat, a soft percale saturated with primary colors, harkens back to the 1920s Constructivist period; the explosive, naïve floral Jar Ptitsa is from the era of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Paris.
Designing Russia Alexandra Marshall 2011
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It certainly can provoke the same frenzied preparations, the choice of a simple, white percale dress, a special hairdo.
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Among 100-percent-cotton percale sheets in our tests, some had a thread count of 400, but the highest-rated sheet had a thread count of 280.
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How did they get from percale duvet covers to this?
Confetti Confidential Holly McQueen 2010
qroqqa commented on the word percale
I can see Mrs Albright, dressed in her best black skirt and percale blouse (she pronounced it 'percal'), bent over before the oval mirror of a cherrywood bureau, tying the velvet ribbons of an antique bonnet under her chin.
—James Thurber, 1952, 'Daguerreotype of a Lady', in The Thurber Album
July 10, 2008
fbharjo commented on the word percale
Persian parg�?lah. a firm smooth cotton cloth closely woven in plain weave and variously finished for clothing, sheeting, and industrial uses.
August 31, 2009