Laken

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A woven fabric typically made of cotton or linen used as bedding; a flat piece of cloth spread over a bed; a general term for fabric sheets used for covering or wrapping
2. A textile material, often light and soft, commonly employed as bed covering; a smooth cloth laid out on sleeping surfaces; a simple sheet or covering made from woven fibers
3. A piece of cloth crafted from natural fibers for use on beds; a broad, rectangular fabric placed for sleeping comfort; a basic linen or cotton covering used for bedding purposes

Etymology: "Laken" is the Dutch and Low German word for a linen cloth or sheet, and English borrowed it from Middle Dutch as a specialized term for bed linen. Its root meaning is tied to flax: the Old Germanic ancestor of the word was linked to linen, and "lakenhall" (cloth hall) appears in English records describing market halls where woollen cloth was sold. English also has a close relative in "lake," a fine linen or thin cloth, which shows the sense of "fine cloth" moving through the trade before settling on bedding. This is a loanword rather than a native English formation, so its history lives mostly in the Low Countries' textile trade. Dutch merchants were prominent cloth dealers in medieval and early modern England, which helps explain why cloth terms like this one entered the language. Exact dates of first English use are uncertain, so the safest summary is that the word arrived through commerce rather than through everyday speech.

Synonyms: linen, sheet, cloth