madras

From Madras, former name of the Indian city Chennai, where it was first produced.

• IPA^(key): /məˈdɹæs/, /ˈmædɹəs/

madras (countable and uncountable, plural madrases)

1. A brightly colored cotton fabric with a checked or striped pattern.
   • 1887, G. W. Cable, “Au Large”, in Scribner's Monthly, volume 35, page 90:

     A black woman in blue cotton gown, red-and-yellow Madras turban […] crouched against the wall.

   • 2004 August 30, The New Yorker, page 38:

     The service makes available, during limited weekend hours, a handful of the company’s items—cargo shorts, tank tops, and the like—to the Hamptons house guest who discovers that he can’t make it to Monday without purchasing one of those weird madras patchwork blazers

   • 2023 June 10, Robert Armstrong, “Check yourself: why I love madras cloth”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 4:

     In one area, however, I stick close to my roots: an unreconstructed loved of madras cloth. Madras (pronounced, in the US, with the emphasis on the first syllable) is a lightweight carded cotton cloth with a bright plaid pattern, first produced in and named for the Indian city now known as Chennai.

2. A large handkerchief of this fabric, worn on the head in the West Indies.
3. Alternative form of Madras (“type of curry”).
   • 2002, Desmond Barry, A Bloody Good Friday, page 157:

     Gerry ordered poppadoms and parathas and then he was interrupted by requests for vindaloos, chicken madrases and sag joshes, rice, raita and nan, from Priest, Morgan and Maria Grazia.

• madras (cloth) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Mardas, damars, dramas, masdar

From Dutch matras or German Matratze (from Middle High German, from Old Italian materazzo).

madras c (singular definite madrassen, plural indefinite madrasser)

1. mattress

• “madras” in Den Danske Ordbog

From English madras.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɑdrɑs/, [ˈmɑ̝drɑ̝s̠]
• Rhymes: -ɑdrɑs
• Syllabification^(key): mad‧ras
• Hyphenation^(key): mad‧ras

madras

1. madras (type of cotton fabric)

• madraspuuvilla

• “madras”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[1] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 3 July 2023

From Madras.

• IPA^(key): /ma.dʁas/ ~ /ma.dʁɑs/

• Audio:

  (file)

madras m (plural madras)

1. (textiles) madras

• “madras”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Borrowed from French madras.

madras n (plural madrasuri)

1. (textiles) madras

• madras in Academia Română, Micul dicționar academic, ediția a II-a, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2010. →ISBN

From Màdras.

• IPA^(key): /mǎdras/
• Hyphenation: mad‧ras

màdras m inan (Cyrillic spelling ма̀драс)

1. (textiles) madras

• “madras”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025