calico

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: cal=i=co

CIDE DICTIONARY

calico, n. [So called because first imported from Calicut, in the East Indies: cf. F. calicot.].

•  Plain white cloth made from cotton, but which receives distinctive names according to quality and use, as, super calicoes, shirting calicoes, unbleached calicoes, etc.  [1913 Webster]

  "The importation of printed or stained colicoes appears to have been coeval with the establishment of the East India Company"  [1913 Webster]
•  Cotton cloth printed with a figured pattern.  [1913 Webster]

  " In the United States the term calico is applied only to the printed fabric."  [1913 Webster]

Calico bass (Zoöl.), an edible, fresh-water fish (Pomoxys sparaides) of the rivers and lake of the Western United States (esp. of the Misissippi valley.), allied to the sunfishes, and so called from its variegated colors; -- called also calicoback, grass bass, strawberry bass, barfish, and bitterhead. -- Calico printing, the art or process of impressing the figured patterns on calico.

calico, a. 

 Made of, or having the appearance of, calico; -- often applied to an animal, as a horse or cat, on whose body are large patches of a color strikingly different from its main color.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

calico, n. & adj.
--n. (pl. -oes or US -os)
1 a cotton cloth, esp. plain white or unbleached.
2 US a printed cotton fabric.
--adj.
1 made of calico.
2 US multicoloured, piebald.

Etymology

earlier calicut f. Calicut in India

ROGET THESAURUS

calico

Materials

N materials, material, raw material, stuff, stock, staple, adobe, brown stone, chinking, clapboard, daubing, puncheon, shake, shingle, bricks and mortar, metal, stone, clay, brick crockery, compo, composition, concrete, reinforced concrete, cement, wood, ore, timber, materials, supplies, munition, fuel, grist, household stuff pabulum, ammunition, contingents, relay, reinforcement, reenforcement, baggage, means, calico, cambric, cashmere, raw, wooden, adobe.