Broadloom

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of flooring material consisting of large, seamless woven fabric typically used for entire rooms in wall-to-wall carpeting
2. A flooring solution characterized by wide, seamless fabric made for wall-to-wall coverage in spaces like homes and offices, serving both decorative and practical roles
3. A large, continuous piece of woven carpet designed to cover entire floor areas without seams

Etymology: Broadloom is one of those compounds whose parts explain the whole thing. "Broad" describes the width, and "loom" is the frame on which cloth is woven. The carpet is simply rug-making done on a wide loom, so the name describes the manufacturing method rather than the rug itself. The point of the wide loom was the result: carpet woven in a single web many feet across, which could be laid edge to edge over an entire floor without the seams that narrow strips would require. The word's meaning follows from that, so the everyday sense of a wall-to-wall carpet comes straight from the machine that made it.

Synonyms: carpet, rug