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''damask'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250804005103-00-⌔

damask - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

damask (countable and uncountable, plural damasks)

  • An ornate silk fabric originating from Damascus.
    • ✤ True damasks are pure silk.
    • ✤ […] but what struck Tom’s fancy most was a strange, grim-looking, high backed chair, carved in the most fantastic manner, with a flowered damask cushion, and the round knobs at the bottom of the legs carefully tied up in red cloth, as if it had got the gout in its toes.1
    • ✤ Its curtains were of damask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and silver ground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls, and it stood in a room hung with rows of the queen’s devices in cut black velvet upon cloth of silver.2
  • Linen so woven that a pattern is produced by the different directions of the thread, without contrast of colour.
  • A heavy woolen or worsted stuff with a pattern woven in the same way as the linen damask; made for furniture covering and hangings.
    • ✤ Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.3
  • Damascus steel.
  • The peculiar markings or water of such steel.
  • A damask rose, Rosa × damascena.
  • A grayish-pink color, like that of the damask rose.
    • ✤ damask:
    • ✤ Thursday. D. certainly improved. Better night. Slight tinge of damask revisiting cheek.4

Adjective

damask (comparative more damask, superlative most damask)

  • Of a grayish - pink colour, like that of the damask rose.
    • ✤ But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,/Feed on her damask cheek5
    • ✤ They had a lurking suspicion even, that he died of secret love; though I must say there was a picture of him in the house with a damask nose, which concealment did not appear to have ever preyed upon.6
    • ✤ Hortense, with her rich chestnut locks so luxuriantly knotted, plaited, twisted, as if she did not know how to dispose of all their abundance, with her vermillion lips, damask cheek, and roguish laughing eye.7
    • ✤ My cage has many rooms/Damask and dark/Nothing there sings,/Not even my lark.8

Verb

damask (third-person singular simple present damasks, present participle damasking, simple past and past participle damasked)

  • To decorate or weave in damascene patterns
    • ✤ Madame de Mercœur had herself arranged her dress, which was splendid white silk, damasked with silver flowers; but it was with much internal misgiving that she put on the graceful cap and plume.9

Etymology

From Middle English damaske, from Medieval Latin damascus, named after the city Damascus, where the fabric was originally made.

Pronunciation

  • (UK, General American) IPA: /ˈdæm.əsk/
    • Audio (Southern England): 🔊

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC: ↩

  2. 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter XI, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC, page 206: ↩

  3. 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0016: ↩

  4. 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC: ↩

  5. c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC,: ↩

  6. 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC: ↩

  7. a. 1856 (date written), Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter XI, in A[rthur] B[ell] Nicholls, editor, The Professor, a Tale. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], published 1857, →OCLC, page 187: ↩

  8. 1973, Stephen Sondheim, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: ↩

  9. 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter II, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 19: ↩

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