Forms: 5 tapstery, 5–6 tapestrye, 5–8 tapistry, 6 tapstry, -ye, tappistre, 6–7 tapes-, tapis., tapstrie, 6– tapestry. [Corruption of tapesry, tapesserie, tapisry, or other form of TAPISSERY. The t may have developed phonetically between s and r, or may have been aided by words in -istry: cf. TAPESTER. (In Milton and Dryden a disyllable.)]
1. A textile fabric decorated with designs of ornament or pictorial subjects, painted, embroidered, or woven in colors, used for wall hangings, curtains, covers for seats, to hang from windows or balconies on festive occasions, etc.; especially, such a decorated fabric, in which a weft containing ornamental designs in colored wool or silk, gold or silver thread, etc., is worked with bobbins or broaches, and pressed close with a comb, on a warp of hemp or flax stretched in a frame. Often loosely applied to imitative textile fabrics.
1434. [implied in TAPESTRY-WORK].
1467. Mann. & Househ. Exp. (Roxb.), 387. My mastyr bowte of Skukborow of Cornelle, xij. peces of curse tapstery.
1500–20. Dunbar, Poems, lxxvii. 49. The streittis war all hung with tapestrie.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, IX. vi. 120. Prowd tapystry, and mekle precius ware.
1545. Rates of Custom, C vij. Tapistry wyth sylke the ell xx d.
1570. Levins, Manip., 106/13. Tapstrye, tapêtum.
1573–80. Baret, Alv., T 62. Tapestrie, or hangings, in which are wrought pictures of diuerse colours.
1590. Shaks., Com. Err., IV. i. 104. In the Deske That’s couer’d o’re with Turkish Tapistrie.
1633. G. Herbert, Temple, Church Porch, xlv. I care not though the cloth of state should be Not of rich arras, but mean tapestrie.
1649. Milton, Eikon., xxvii. Wks. 1851, III. 513. To be struck as mute and motionless as a Parlament of Tapstrie in the Hangings.
1700. Dryden, Pal. & Arc., III. 104. Rich tapestry spread the streets, and flowers the posts adorn.
1777. Watson, Philip II. (1839), 47. Arras was famous for tapestries, which still retain the name of that place.
1835. Penny Cycl., IV. 68/1. Bayeux Tapestry, a web or roll of linen cloth or canvass, preserved at Bayeux in Normandy, upon which a continuous representation of the events connected with the invasion and conquest of England … is worked in woollen thread of different colours.
1842. Brande, Dict. Sc., etc., s.v., In Painting, tapestry is applied to a representation of a subject in wool or silk … worked on a woven ground of hemp or flax.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Note-Bks., I. 162. Gobelin tapestry … brilliant as pictures.
b. transf. and fig.
1581. Sidney, Apol. Poetrie (Arb.), 25. Nature neuer set forth the earth in so rich tapistry, as diuers Poets haue done.
c. 1630. Risdon, Surv. Devon, § 175 (1810), 184. A bridge, whose chiefest tapestry is Ivy.
1693. Evelyn, De la Quint. Compl. Gard., II. 179. Squares covered with Green Herbs, compleat the tapestry, that adorns the Ground.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. x. (1858), 38. Looking at the fair tapestry of human Life.
1845. Stocqueler, Handbk. Brit. India (1854), 215. The rich tapestry of the jungles.
1875. Lowell, Under Old Elm, II. iii. Present and Past … inseparably wrought Into the seamless tapestry of thought.
2. Short for tapestry-carpet: see 3.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 390/1. In the Brussels the coloured wools make up the bulk of the carpet, while in the ‘tapestry’ the wool … is … all on the surface.
3. attrib. and Comb., as tapestry artist, covering, hall, -hanging, -maker, -making, -man, room, table-cover; tapestry-covered, -like, adjs.; tapestry beetle, a dermestid beetle, Attagenus piceus, the larva of which is destructive to tapestry, woollens, etc.; tapestry-carpet, a carpet resembling Brussels, but in which the warp yarn forming the pile is colored so as to produce the pattern when woven; tapestry-cloth, a piece of tapestry; spec. a corded linen prepared for ‘tapestry-painting’ (Cent. Dict.); tapestry-moth, a species of clothes-moth, as Tinea tapetzella; cf. carpet-moth; tapestry-painting, painting on linen in imitation of tapestry; material thus prepared; tapestry-stitch, properly = GOBELIN stitch; also applied to the cross- and tent-stitch work on fine canvas (tapisserie au petit point); tapestry-weaver, one who weaves tapestry; also, a species of spider; tapestry-weaving, the weaving of tapestry; the method of weaving by bobbin and comb, used in making tapestry, as distinct from weaving in a loom with a shuttle. See also TAPESTRY-WORK.
1908. Times, Lit. Suppl., 3 Sept., 286/3. Designs prepared by a *tapestry artist from bird’s-eye views specially drawn by William Van de Velde the Elder.
1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, *Tapestry-carpets, the name generally given to a … two-ply or ingrain carpet, the warp or weft being printed before weaving, so as to produce the figure in the cloth.
1579. Tomson, Calvin’s Serm. Tim., 656/2. Long and large *tapistrie clothes.
1552. Huloet, *Tapestry couerynge, instratum.
1634. Milton, Comus, 324. Honest-offer’d courtesie Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds With smoaky rafters, than in *tapstry Halls And Courts of Princes.
1552. Huloet, *Tapestrye hangynges for noble mens houses.
1700. Congreve, Way of World, II. vi. Like Solomon at the dividing of the Child in an old Tapestry Hanging.
1884. J. Tait, Mind in Matter (1892), 95. *Tapestry-like designs.
1611. Cotgr., Tapissier, a *Tapistrie-maker.
1876. Rock, Text. Fabr., 95. The art of *tapestry-making.
1727–41. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., The design, or painting the *Tapestry-man is to follow, is placed underneath the warp.
1815. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., viii. (1818), I. 233 T[inea] tapetzella, or the *tapestry moth, not uncommon in our houses, is most injurious to the lining of carriages.
1859. W. Collins, Q. of Hearts (1875), 23. A rugged *tapestry table-cover.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 345. The Flemings formerly engrossed *tapestry-weaving to themselves.
1889. Alan S. Cole, Cantor Lect., Egyptian Tapestry, I. 8. The process [anciently] employed is the same as that which was used by the great Flemish weavers … for making their splendid war tapestries, and is now commonly known as the tapestry weaving or Gobelins process.
