satin
/ˈsæt.ɪn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.39 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A cloth woven from silk, nylon or polyester with a glossy surface and a dull back. (The same weaving technique applied to cotton produces cloth termed sateen).
Countable; Uncountable
adj
Example Sentences
- "Ibn Batuta informs us that a rich silk texture made here was called Zaitûniya; and there can be little doubt that this is the real origin of our word Satin,—Zettani in mediæval Italian, Aceytuni in Spanish."
- "'This poor gal was robbed, barely left a stitch, that and the drink... mind, I likes a drop of satin – wot you'd call gin – myself. I'll say nothing against it. She ended thrown out of an upstairs winder.'"
- "satin paint"
Etymology
From French satin, which is derived from "Zaitun", the Arabic name for the Chinese city of Quanzhou, itself derived from Arabic زَيْتُون (zaytūn, “Zayton; olive”), from phono-semantic matching from Chinese 刺桐 (MC tshjeH duwng, “coral tree”) in 刺桐城 (MC tshjeH duwng dzyeng, “coral tree town”), an old name for Quanzhou.
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
- Root: satin