Forms: α. 4–5 tyssu, 4–6 tissewe, 5 tyssew, -eu, -ywe, (pl. -eux), 5–6 tyssue, 5–7 tissu, tissew, 6 tyssewe, tysswe, 5– tissue. β. 5–6 tisshue, tisshewe, Sc. tusche, (tuscha), 5–8 tishew, 6 tyshew, tysshewe, tysshiew, tushwe, Sc. tischey, -ay, tische, tysche, 7 tishue, tishoo. [a. OF. tissu sb., applied to a kind of rich stuff (c. 1200 in Godef., Compl.), from pa. pple. of obs. F. tître, OF. tistre:—*tissre:—L. tex-ĕre to weave.]
1. a. A rich kind of cloth, often interwoven with gold or silver, Obs. exc. Hist.
a. 1366[?]. Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 1104. The barres were of gold ful fyne, Upon a tyssu of satyne.
1429. in Dugdale, Monast. Angl., II. 222. Cum tribus capis choralibus de panno Tyssewys vulgariter nuncupato.
1501. in Calr. Doc. rel. Scotl. (1888), 336. A gown of tawny cloth of gold of tisshue.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., xvi. (Percy Soc.), 61. With cloth of tyssue in the rychest maner The walles were hanged.
1513. Bradshaw, St. Werburge, I. 1647. Fresshely embrodred in ryche tysshewe and fyne.
1543. Grafton, Contn. Harding, 591. The quene … clothed in a riche mantell of tissue.
1562. in Feuillerat, Revels Q. Eliz. (1908), 114. Cloth of Silver purple tysshiew.
1585. T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy., III. viii. 82. Girded with a large girdle of Tissue, or of silke and golde.
1648. Crashaw, Delights Muses, Wks. (1904), 160. Something more than Taffata or Tissew can.
c. 1710. Celia Fiennes, Diary (1888), 4. Good bed Chambers and well furnished velvet damaske and tissue.
1785. G. A. Bellamy, Apology, I. 130. A dress for me to play the character of Cl[e]opatra,… the ground of it was silver tissue.
b. Now applied to various rich or fine stuffs of delicate or gauzy texture.
1730. Swift, Lady’s Dressing-room, Wks. 1755, IV. I. 113. Array’d in lace, brocades and tissues.
1769. Public Advertiser, 2 June, 1/3. Sale of Silks … Brocades, Tissues.
1821. Joanna Baillie, Metr. Leg., Wallace, liv. Tissue of threaded gems is worn.
1910. Westm. Gaz., 12 March, 15/2. Tissues studded with jewels are lightly draped over satin.
† 2. A band or girdle of rich stuff. Obs.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Troylus, II. 590 (639). His helm … That by a tissew heng his bak byhynde.
c. 1430. Pilgr. Lyf Manhode, I. xciv. (1869), 5. The scrippe was of greene selk, and heeng bi a greene tissu.
c. 1440. Partonope, 6726. That tyssew and bocle … all to peses brak.
c. 1450. Holland, Howlat, 405. Mony schene scheld With tuscheis of trast silk tichit to the tre.
1488. Acta Dom. Conc. (1839), 98/2. A tuscha of silk siluerit price v merkis.
1503. Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot., II. 388. xj1/2 elne tisches to men the bordoring of the Kingis sadill bordorit with tischeis.
1508. Test. Ebor. (Surtees), IV. 274. A gyrdill wt a golde tushwe.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, I. vii. 136. And quhair hir pap was for the speir cut away Of gold thairon was belt ane riche tischay. Ibid., XII. v. 133. Quhar as the wovin gyrdill or tysche Abufe his navill was beltit, as we se.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 629. Venus … cast aside her daintie jewels … and threw away that tissue and lovely girdle of hers.
3. Any woven fabric or stuff. In quot. 1850 transf. weaving.
1565. Cooper, Thesaurus, Trilix … tissue made of three threads of diuers colours.
1757. Gray, Bard, I. iii. They … weave with bloody hands the tissue of thy line. [Cf. II. i. Weave the warp, and weave the woof The winding-sheet of Edward’s race.]
a. 1765. Shenstone, Progr. Taste, I. 24. Constant wear … turns the tissue into tatters.
1850. Gladstone, Homer, II. ii. 129. In the arts of tissue and embroidery.
1879. Lubbock, Sci. Lect., v. 155. Tissues of woven flax have been found in some of the Swiss lake-villages.
4. fig. Something likened to a woven fabric, as being produced by the intertwining of separate elements; an intricate mass or interwoven series, a ‘fabric,’ ‘network,’ ‘web’ (of things abstract, most usually of a bad kind, as absurdities, errors, falsehoods, etc.). Also, the structure or contexture of such a ‘fabric.’
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 62, ¶ 6. Those little occasional Poems … are nothing else but a Tissue of Epigrams.
1762. Goldsm., Cit. W., xlii. The history of Europe,… a tissue of crimes, follies, and misfortunes.
1793. T. Jefferson, Writ. (1859), IV. 89. The hasty amendments … had so broken the tissue of the paragraph, as to [etc.].
1812. in Morn. Chron., 27 Feb., 2/4. What a tissue of lies, calumnies and atrocities! All these fables are invented, to furnish a pretext to seize on Sicily, and treat the Court of Palermo as the Nabobs of India are treated.
1820. W. Irving, Sketch Bk., I. 104. The tissue of misrepresentations … woven round us.
1842. Whittier, Raphael, xvi. The tissue of the Life to be We weave with colors all our own.
1878. Gladstone, Prim. Homer, 107. He works it … into the tissue of the poems.
5. Biol. The substance, structure, or texture of which an animal or plant body, or any part or organ of it, is composed; esp. any one of the various structures, each consisting of an aggregation of similar cells or modifications of cells, which make the organism. a. in animals.
The chief forms of tissue in the higher animals are the epithelial (incl. glandular), connective (incl. cartilaginous and osseous), muscular, and nervous tissues (The term is sometimes extended to include the blood as a ‘fluid tissue.’)
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. i. Every cellular, vascular, muscular Tissue.
1834. J. Forbes, Laennec’s Dis. Chest (ed. 4), 279. Chronic inflammation … of the pulmonary tissue.
1846. G. E. Day, trans. Simon’s Anim. Chem., II. 40. Materials … to supply the place of those that have been removed from the body in consequence of waste of tissue.
1857. Buckle, Civiliz., I. xiv. 818. The tissues of the teeth are … analogous to those of other parts.
1861. Hulme, trans. Moquin-Tandon, II. I. 41. The organic Tissues are three in number: 1st, cellular tissue; 2nd, muscular tissue; and 3rd, nervous tissue…. Some writers admit other organic tissues.
1869. Huxley, Phys., i. (ed. 3), 11. Every such constituent of the body, as epidermis, cartilage, or muscle, is called a ‘tissue.’
1880. Bastian, Brain, 28. Nerve tissues are … divided into ‘grey’ and ‘white’ matter.
1889. Mivart, Truth, 149. The arteries, veins and heart are full of a fluid ‘tissue’—the blood.
b. in plants.
The various forms of plant tissue may be generally reduced to two classes, typified by parenchyma and prosenchyma. In the higher plants there are three systems of tissues, the epidermal, fundamental, and fibro-vascular.
1837. [implied in TISSUAL].
1845. Lindley, Sch. Bot., x. (1858), 159. Tissue is called Woody Fibre when it is composed of slender tubes placed side by side.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, Sachs’ Bot., 68. Every aggregate of cells which obeys a common law of growth … may be termed a Tissue. Ibid., 103. The relationship of the three systems of tissue may be observed … in … foliage-leaves.
c. generally; also fig.
1856. Dove, Logic Chr. Faith, II. § 2. 114. The new chart must clothe the world with its living tissues.
1858. Lewes, Sea-side Stud., 400. Histology is the doctrine of the tissues; and tissues are the webs out of which the organism is fabricated.
1872. Bagehot, Physics & Pol., 178. The germ might be foreign, but the tissue was native.
1878. Bell, Gegenbaur’s Comp. Anat., 16. Conversion of the cells into tissue.
6. Short for TISSUE-PAPER, q.v.
1780–1. Act 21 Geo. III., c. 24 § 2. For every Bundle of Paper made in Great Britain for Printing, called Demy Tissue. For every Bundle of Paper called Crown Tissue.
1797. Nemnich, Waaren-Lexicon, 30/1. Die Englischen Papiersorten…. Crown, single, inferior, double, double inferior, and tissue;… Demy single, inferior, plate, short, tissue, writing [etc.].
(The reference here was prob. to sizes of specially prepared tissue-paper (now spoken of as ‘printing paper’ and ‘printing tissue’), on which designs were printed from copper plates for transference to pottery-ware. This was specially taxed.)
7. Photogr. Paper made in strips coated with a film of gelatine containing a pigment, used in carbon printing.
1873. E. Spon, Workshop Receipts, Ser. I. 267/1. This carbon tissue consists of a layer of gelatine containing the carbon or other permanent pigment spread on paper.
1878. Abney, Photogr., xxiv. 165. Nany improvements in the manufacture of the tissue have been made, and the different substances added to the gelatine are only partially known to the public.
1891. Anthony’s Photogr. Bull., IV. 80. Tissue can be obtained from London and sensitized as required for use.
8. Collector’s name for two species of moth, Scotosia (Triphosa) dubitata and cervinata.
1832. Rennie, Butterfl. & Moths, 128. The Tissue (T[riphosa] dubitata, Stephens)…. Wings … brown, shining; first pair having a tinge of purple. Ibid. The Scarce Tissue (T. cervinata, Stephens).
9. attrib. and Comb. a. attrib. Made or consisting of tissue (sense 1); in quot. a. 1625, dressed in tissue.
1480. Wardr. Acc. Edw. IV., in Privy Purse Exp. Eliz. York, etc. (1830), 149. A long gowne of grene velvet upon velvet tisshue cloth of gold.
1570. Foxe, A. & M. (ed. 2), 2143/2. The Vicechauncellour hauing on a tyshew cope.
a. 1625. Fletcher, Love’s Cure, I. iii. Smooth City fools or tisseu Cavaliers.
1704. Lond. Gaz., No. 3981/4. A rich Silver Tishia Gown.
1708. Brit. Apollo, No. 37. 2/2. Tishew Sleves.
1796. Mar. J. Holroyd, in Girlhood M. J. H. (1896), 373. Milady wore … a Gold Tissue … Train.
b. Comb., chiefly in sense 5, as tissue-building sb. and adj., -cell, -change, -death, -element, -form, -former, -forming adj., -growth, -like adj., -product, -system, -transformation; tissue-lymph, lymph derived from the tissues (not directly from the blood); tissue-secretion; see quots. 1848, 1861. See also TISSUE-PAPER.
1848. Dana, Zooph., iv. 51. Secretions formed within the animal which are mostly calcareous … may be called tissue-secretions…. These secretions take place from the tissues of the sides and the base of the polyp.
1861. Greene, Man. Anim. Kingd., Cœlent., 153. The sclerobasic corallum is by Mr. Dana termed ‘foot secretion’: the sclerodermic, ‘tissue secretion.’
1866. Odling, Anim. Chem., 1. Recent advances in chemistry of tissue-products.
1872. Huxley, Phys., vi. 139. Proteids are tissue-formers.
1873. T. H. Green, Introd. Pathol. (ed. 2), 24. The increased tissue-change which accompanies acute febrile diseases. Ibid., 88. The pulmonary pigment … may be seen … within the connective tissue-cells.
1875. Bennett & Dyer, trans. Sachs’ Bot., 78. In this manner arise in the higher plants … systems of tissue-forms, which may be designated simply as Systems of Tissue.
1886. A. Winchell, Walks Geol. Field, 308. The processes of digestion,… assimilation, and tissue-building.
c. 1890. A. Murdoch, Yoshiwara Episode, 26. He … wondered … what the soft, flimsy, tissue-like paper was.
1896. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., I. 213. It is quite possible that a trace of albumose might thus be formed after tissue-death.
1903. G. Oliver, in Lancet, 3 Oct., 942/1. Physiologists are divided as to whether tissue lymph is a pressure product … or a secretion.
