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FLANNEL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected forms: flannelled , flannelling
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A soft light woolen fabric; used for clothing
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("flannel" is a kind of...):
cloth; fabric; material; textile (artifact made by weaving or felting or knitting or crocheting natural or synthetic fibers)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(usually in the plural) trousers made of flannel or gabardine or tweed or white cloth
Synonyms:
flannel; gabardine; tweed; white
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("flannel" is a kind of...):
pair of trousers; pant; trousers ((usually in the plural) a garment extending from the waist to the knee or ankle, covering each leg separately)
Domain usage:
plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Bath linen consisting of a piece of cloth used to wash the face and body
Synonyms:
face cloth; flannel; washcloth; washrag
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("flannel" is a kind of...):
bath linen (linens for use in the bathroom)
Context examples:
He was a tall, handsome, swarthy fellow, clad in a suit of grey flannel, with a Panama hat, a bristling black beard, and a great, aggressive hooked nose, and flourishing a cane as he walked.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
She was born to overcome an affection formed so late in life as at seventeen, and with no sentiment superior to strong esteem and lively friendship, voluntarily to give her hand to another!—and THAT other, a man who had suffered no less than herself under the event of a former attachment, whom, two years before, she had considered too old to be married,—and who still sought the constitutional safeguard of a flannel waistcoat!
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
He must have a piece of flannel in his house this winter, and I shouldn't wonder if he came out quite fresh again, with the flowers in the spring.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
When they had laughed at Beth's story, they asked their mother for one, and after a moments thought, she said soberly, "As I sat cutting out blue flannel jackets today at the rooms, I felt very anxious about Father, and thought how lonely and helpless we should be, if anything happened to him. It was not a wise thing to do, but I kept on worrying till an old man came in with an order for some clothes. He sat down near me, and I began to talk to him, for he looked poor and tired and anxious.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
He was a dreadful old man to look at, in a filthy flannel waistcoat, and smelling terribly of rum.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
It was not until we had rung three or four times that we could prevail on Mrs. Crupp to communicate with us, but at last she appeared, being a stout lady with a flounce of flannel petticoat below a nankeen gown.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
She had by this time drawn the chair to her side, and was busily engaged in producing from the bag (plunging in her short arm to the shoulder, at every dive) a number of small bottles, sponges, combs, brushes, bits of flannel, little pairs of curling-irons, and other instruments, which she tumbled in a heap upon the chair.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
With this, she tilted some of the contents of the little bottle on to one of the little bits of flannel, and, again imparting some of the virtues of that preparation to one of the little brushes, began rubbing and scraping away with both on the crown of Steerforth's head in the busiest manner I ever witnessed, talking all the time.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Two or three times in the course of the night, attired in a long flannel wrapper in which she looked seven feet high, she appeared, like a disturbed ghost, in my room, and came to the side of the sofa on which I lay.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
My aunt being supremely indifferent to Mrs. Crupp's opinion and everybody else's, and rather favouring than discouraging the idea, Mrs. Crupp, of late the bold, became within a few days so faint-hearted, that rather than encounter my aunt upon the staircase, she would endeavour to hide her portly form behind doors—leaving visible, however, a wide margin of flannel petticoat—or would shrink into dark corners.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
