table-linen

See also: table linen

English

Noun

table-linen (countable and uncountable, plural table-linens)

1. Archaic form of table linen.
   • 1848, William J[oseph] O’N[eill] Daunt, Personal Recollections of the Late Daniel O’Connell, M.P., volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], page 149:

     It was a comfortable thing for a social pair of fellow-travellers to get out of their chaise at night-fall, and to find at the inn (it was then kept by a cousin of mine, a Mrs. Cotter), a roaring fire, in a clean, well-furnished parlour, the whitest table-linen, the best beef, the sweetest and tenderest mutton, the fattest fowl, the most excellent wines (claret and Madeira were the high wines then—they knew nothing about Champagne), and the most comfortable beds.

   • 1857, M. Barbieri, A Descriptive and Historical Gazetteer of the Counties of Fife, Kinross, and Clackmannan, […], Edinburgh: Maclachlan & Stewart, […], page 105:

     Upwards of 300 persons are employed in weaving table-linens and table-covers, consisting of cotton and worsted, for Dunfermline, where they get their webs ready for the loom.

   • 1904, Carolyn Wells, “Shopping”, in Patty at Home, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, →OCLC, page 61:

     Her father insisted upon her undivided attention while Mrs. Elliott selected table-linen, bed-linen, towels, and other household fittings; […]