gauze
/ɡɔːz
/noun [mass noun]
1A thin transparent fabric of silk, linen, or cotton: a hat swathed in green gauze [count noun]: colourful gauzes...
- In their methods and approach, they use a range of materials that includes sand, printed fabric, mud, gauze and textured whites.
- There's unfortunately nothing you can do about this, but you can stabilize the damaged areas by sewing a bit of cotton gauze to the underside with silk thread.
- She lay on a four-poster bed with a canopy of shimmering gauze and silk.
1.1 Medicine Thin, loosely woven cloth used for dressings and swabs: ulcers were bandaged with antiseptic gauze...
- Gently wash areas of infected skin with clean gauze and antiseptic soap daily.
- Wash your eye with tepid water, using a clean piece of cotton wool or gauze for each wipe.
- Cotton gauze has been used to dress wounds for hundreds of years because it is naturally soft, pliable, and absorbent.
1.2 [in singular] A transparent haze or film: they saw the grasslands through a gauze of golden dust...
- Perhaps the chiffon is not yet entirely gone from the sky - there is a light gauze of haze yet in the distance.
- January has wrapped the worn-out city in a cold gauze of wood smoke and exhaust fumes.
- His paintings are loose and washy figurative dreamscapes that make the viewer feel as if there's a thick gauze on the surface of the painting and a story book world floating behind it.
2 (also wire gauze) A very fine wire mesh.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from French gaze, perhaps from Gaza, the name of a town in Palestine.