Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A light, plain-woven fabric, usually of tussah or raw silk.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A soft, unbleached washing silk resembling the tasar silk of India, woven in China, chiefly in the province of Shantung, from cocoons of a wild silkworm (Attacus pernyi) which feeds on a scrub-oak. The finer kinds bleached, dyed or figured after importation, are known in the trade as China silks.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A fabric of undyed silk from India and China.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A soft unbleached silk, from China or India, from silkworms that feed on oak leaves

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a soft thin cloth woven from raw silk (or an imitation)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Of Chinese origin, perhaps from an earlier Chinese (Mandarin) *běn zhī, homemade fabric : běn, root, base, foundation, original, one's own (from Early Middle Chinese pen’) + zhī, to weave, spin (from Middle Chinese tʂiăk, ultimately from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *tək; akin to Tibetan ′thag).]

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Examples

  • They seem always to be papered with buff-and-mustard papers and to have "pongee" sofa-cushions with frills.

    The Reflections of Ambrosine A Novel Elinor Glyn 1903

  • Miss Drexel, seized by inspiration or desperation, with a quick movement stripped off her short, corduroy tramping-skirt, and, looking very lithe and boyish in slender-cut pongee bloomers, ran along the sand and dropped the skirt for a foothold for the slowly revolving wheels.

    WHOSE BUSINESS IS TO LIVE 2010

  • At one point Miss Drexel "seized by inspiration or desperation, with a quick movement stripped off her short, corduroy tramping-skirt, and, looking very lithe and boyish in slender-cut pongee bloomers," throws the skirt under the wheels to give the machine's wheels purchase.

    “It was the Golden Fleece ready for the shearing.” 2008

  • Fontana of Italy, in a feat never before attempted in pongee, novelty cottons, shantung, or faille, is performing the incredibly difficult REVERSE BOLERO with this pattern.

    August 2009 2009

  • Fontana of Italy, in a feat never before attempted in pongee, novelty cottons, shantung, or faille, is performing the incredibly difficult REVERSE BOLERO with this pattern.

    Fontana Attempts the Difficult and Dangerous Reverse Bolero! - A Dress A Day 2009

  • Wild silk fabrics—such as pongee or shantung—are both durable and less expensive than pure dye silks.

    HOME COMFORTS CHERYL MENDELSON 2005

  • Wild silk fabrics—such as pongee or shantung—are both durable and less expensive than pure dye silks.

    HOME COMFORTS CHERYL MENDELSON 2005

  • Wild silk fabrics—such as pongee or shantung—are both durable and less expensive than pure dye silks.

    HOME COMFORTS CHERYL MENDELSON 2005

  • Wild silk fabrics—such as pongee or shantung—are both durable and less expensive than pure dye silks.

    HOME COMFORTS CHERYL MENDELSON 2005

  • The willow, almond and the whole lot of trees, on the upper side, were, it is true, without blossom and leaves; but pongee and damask silks, paper and lustring had been employed, together with rice-paper, to make flowers of, which had been affixed on the branches.

    Hung Lou Meng 2003

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  • "Mrs. Oliphant was very glad to see them. She wore a suit made out of pongee, a hat with a green veil, an amethyst necklace, a lapis lazuli necklace, and a silver one with her eyeglasses on it."

    The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright, pp 165-166 of the 2008 paperback edition

    July 2, 2011