Cloth

Description

A flat textile made by weaving, knitting, or felting. Cloth examples made from linen have been found from about 5000 BCE from Egyptian sites Gayum and Badari. Cotton textile fragments dating to 3000 BCE have been found at Mohnjo Daro in India (Singer et al 1954). Cloth may be made from natural fibers or synthetic fibers. Examples of natural fibers are: Linen, Wool, Hair, Silk, Flax, Cotton, Sisal, Esparto, Hemp, or Jute. Examples of synthetic fibers are: Nylon, Rayon, Acetate, Polyester, Acrylic, and Polyolefin. Specialty fabrics can also be made from mineral or metal fibers such as Asbestos, Glass, Boron, Graphite, Steel, and Aluminum.

See also:

• Properties of Natural Fibers
• Properties of Synthetic Fibers
• Fiber Burn Tests

Synonyms and Related Terms

fabric; textile; material; yardage (cut cloth); tela, paño (Esp.);stuk stof, doek, dweil, lap, materiaal, geweven stof, vilt, laken, zeildoek (Ned);

Applications

• Clothing and furniture cushions
• Storage bags, dust covers

Resources and Citations

• C.Singer, E.Holmyard, A.Hall, A History of Technology, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1954.
• Hoechst Celanese Corporation, Dictionary of Fiber & Textile Technology (older version called Man-made Fiber and Textile Dictionary, 1965), Hoechst Celanese Corporation, Charlotte NC, 1990
• Rosalie Rosso King, Textile Identification, Conservation, and Preservation, Noyes Publications, Park Ridge, NJ, 1985
• Reed Kay, The Painter's Guide To Studio Methods and Materials, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1983
• Matt Roberts, Don Etherington, Bookbinding and the Conservation of Books: a Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1982
• A.Lucas, J.R.Harris, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries, Edward Arnold Publishers Ltd., London, 4th edition, 1962
• R. J. Gettens, G.L. Stout, Painting Materials, A Short Encyclopaedia, Dover Publications, New York, 1966
• G.S.Brady, Materials Handbook, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1971
• Random House, Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, Grammercy Book, New York, 1997
• The American Heritage Dictionary or Encarta, via Microsoft Bookshelf 98, Microsoft Corp., 1998
• Tom Rowland, Noel Riley, A-Z Guide to Cleaning, Conserving and Repairing Antiques, Constable and Co., Ltd., London, 1981
• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, https://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000 Comment: 'cloth' preferred over fabric