Definitions

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

  • noun A fine soft silk cloth.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See sarsenet.

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

  • noun A species of fine thin silk fabric, used for linings, etc.

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

  • noun Alternative form of sarsenet.
  • noun Thou green sarcenet flap for a sore eye. — Shakespeare.

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

  • noun a fine soft silk fabric often used for linings

Etymologies

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

[Middle English sarsenet, from Anglo-Norman sarzinett, perhaps from Old French Saracin, Saracen, from Late Latin Saracēnus; see Saracen.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old French sacenet; compare Latin saracenium cloth made by Saracens. See Saracen.

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Examples

  • Violet timorously asked, What about the bale of silk sarcenet?

    The Dressmaker Posie Graeme-Evans 2010

  • The young woman was dressed in a lovely gown of white crepe spotted with white satin over a sarcenet slip, trimmed at the neck and sleeves with wreaths of black silk flowers.

    The Laird Who Loved Me Karen Hawkins 2009

  • The young woman was dressed in a lovely gown of white crepe spotted with white satin over a sarcenet slip, trimmed at the neck and sleeves with wreaths of black silk flowers.

    The Laird Who Loved Me Karen Hawkins 2009

  • The young woman was dressed in a lovely gown of white crepe spotted with white satin over a sarcenet slip, trimmed at the neck and sleeves with wreaths of black silk flowers.

    The Laird Who Loved Me Karen Hawkins 2009

  • Intense was the low murmur of admiration when a particularly small gentleman, in a dress coat, led on a particularly tall lady in a blue sarcenet pelisse and bonnet of the same, ornamented with large white feathers, and forthwith commenced a plaintive duet.

    Sketches by Boz 2007

  • For them he devised elaborate new fancy-dress costumes, a “blue velvet mantle with a Garter on the left shoulder, lined with white sarcenet and scarlet hose with black velvet around the thighs.”

    The Dragon’s Trail Joanna Pitman 2006

  • For them he devised elaborate new fancy-dress costumes, a “blue velvet mantle with a Garter on the left shoulder, lined with white sarcenet and scarlet hose with black velvet around the thighs.”

    The Dragon’s Trail Joanna Pitman 2006

  • For them he devised elaborate new fancy-dress costumes, a “blue velvet mantle with a Garter on the left shoulder, lined with white sarcenet and scarlet hose with black velvet around the thighs.”

    The Dragon’s Trail Joanna Pitman 2006

  • For them he devised elaborate new fancy-dress costumes, a “blue velvet mantle with a Garter on the left shoulder, lined with white sarcenet and scarlet hose with black velvet around the thighs.”

    The Dragon’s Trail Joanna Pitman 2006

  • He had made a little cuddy there inside his inner sarcenet, and down his plaited neck-cloth ran a sly companionway to it, so that his eyes might steal a visit to the joy that was over his heart and in it.

    Springhaven Richard Doddridge 2004

Comments

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  • Also see sarsenet.

    August 4, 2009

  • "Mrs Z was 'simply attired in a plain coloured gown made of a very few yards of sarcenet.'"

    —Annabel Venning, Following the Drum: The Lives of Army Wives and Daughters Past and Present (London: Headline, 2005), 192

    May 18, 2010