velvet
/ˈvɛlvɪt
/noun [mass noun]
1A closely woven fabric of silk, cotton, or nylon, that has a thick short pile on one side: an armchair covered in velvet [as modifier]: red velvet curtains...
- It was a pretty room, with a large window shrouded by thick, red, velvet curtains.
- The materials used are silk, silk organza, cotton, brocade and velvet.
- They sat, as they always did, in the faded velvet armchairs on either side of the fire.
1.1Soft downy skin that covers a deer’s antler while it is growing: a moose was rubbing the velvet from his antlers the bucks are still in velvet...
- Before that, they are in velvet [growing antlers] and milling about in big herds like cows and do not represent a sporting quarry.
- Then there's the period of antler shedding, and the months they're in velvet.
- The bucks were so close that I could see the velvet on their antlers - from the safety of my car.
Phrases
on velvet
Derivatives
velveted
- A yearling will have velveted antlers 10-18 inches and the neck mane will be very short.
- A bull moose, with small, velveted antlers in spring, could do little more to defend a calf from a grizzly than could a cow.
Origin
Middle English: from Old French veluotte, from velu 'velvety', from medieval Latin villutus, from Latin villus 'tuft, down'.
Velvet is noted for its smoothness and softness. Latin villus, ‘tuft, down’, is the source of it and of velour (early 18th century). An iron fist in a velvet glove, meaning ‘firmness or ruthlessness cloaked in outward gentleness’, has been current in English since the 1830s when it appeared as a saying of Napoleon's. People gave the name velvet revolution to the relatively smooth change from Communism to a Western-style democracy in Czechoslovakia at the end of 1989. The similarly trouble-free division of that country into Slovakia and the Czech Republic in 1992 was the velvet divorce.