Tussar

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A coarse, naturally golden-brown silk spun by wild silkworms, mostly in India, and woven into a rough, textured fabric
2. A rough, tan-colored silk cloth produced from the cocoons of wild moths rather than cultivated silkworms
3. Wild silk of a brownish, lustrous kind, obtained from certain Asian moth caterpillars and used for rugged garments and furnishings

Etymology: Tussar is the name of a wild silk spun by caterpillars of several moth species, and its name comes from a weaving tool. In Sanskrit, "tasara" meant "shuttle", the spool-like implement that carries the weft thread back and forth across a loom. The word passed into Hindi as "tasar", and English adopted it from there, so the name of the silk points back to the shuttle that handled it rather than to the insect or the fibre itself. The link is easy to miss because the silk is so different from the common mulberry silk of China. Tussar threads are coarser, browner, and harder to bleach, and they come from wild or semi-wild moths feeding on trees such as oak and sal. The name describes the process of weaving the cloth rather than anything about the material, which is a reminder that many textile words were named after the tools used to make them.

Synonyms: tussah, tussore