flannel
/ˈflænəl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.18 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A soft cloth material originally woven from wool, today often combined with cotton or synthetic fibers.
Uncountable
noun
Synonym of flip (“hot mixture of beer, spirit, etc.”).
British usage; Countable; Obsolete; Uncountable
adj
Made of flannel.
Example Sentences
- "With the weather turning colder, it was time to dig out our flannel sheets and nightclothes."
- "First singer and guitarist Marcus Mumford, wearing a black suit, then bassist Ted Dwane, in leather bomber and T-shirt. Next bearded banjo player Winston Marshall, his blue flannel shirt hanging loose, and pianist Ben Lovett, wrapped in a woollen coat."
- "There’s a communal memory of [Kurt] Cobain’s wearing flannel in this video, and that this image was the dawn of grunge fashion."
- ""The Witch of Endor was a fool to her, sir: bless you, she would make no more of raising every gentleman in the Bible out of these here beastly tombs than I should of growing cress on an old flannel.""
- "Don't talk flannel!"
- "I got a little cross and asked him to stop flannelling and to tell me what was holding me back. Were my annual assessments below par? Was there something I had done – or not done?"
Etymology
From Middle English flaunneol, from Anglo-Norman flanelle (compare Norman flianné), diminutive of Old French flaine, floene (“coarse wool”), from Gaulish, from Proto-Celtic *wlānos, *wlanā (“wool”) (compare Welsh gwlân, Breton gloan), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wĺ̥h₁neh₂. More at wool.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
- Uncountable
- New Zealand usage
- British usage
- Countable
- American usage
- Slang
- Obsolete
- Transitive verb
Inflected Forms
flannels (plural)
flannen (alternative, dialectal)
flanan (alternative, Scotland)
flanning (alternative, Scotland)
flanen (alternative, Scotland)
flannels (present, singular)
flanneling (US, participle)
flannelling (UK, participle)
flanneled (US, participle)
flanneled (US, past)
flannelled (UK, participle)
flannelled (UK, past)