Art & MusicGreek → English
Tapestry
/ˈtæpɪstri/noun
A heavy hand-woven textile with a design worked into the weft, hung on walls or used as furnishing.
The Greek roots
τάπης
tápēs
carpet, woven rug
Literally: “rug work”
Follow a root:τάπης1 word
The story of the word
The chain runs Greek τάπης to Byzantine ταπήτιον, then Old French tapis and tapisserie, then English with an extra r that nobody has fully explained. Greek itself probably took the word from an Iranian source, since the carpets came from the east before the vocabulary did. The Bayeux Tapestry, awkwardly, is embroidery rather than tapestry: the design sits on the cloth instead of being woven into it.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 15th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
tapistapestry-weave
In a sentence
The tapestry took eleven weavers most of a year.
Cold stone walls were hung with tapestry as much for warmth as for show.