Calico
Calico , noun
[So called because first imported from Calicut, in the East Indies: compare French calicot.]
1.
Plain white cloth made from cotton, but which receives distinctive names according to quality and use, as, super calicoes, shirting calicoes, unbleached calicoes, etc. [English]
The importation of printed or stained colicoes appears to have been coeval with the establishment of the East India Company
2.
Cotton cloth printed with a figured pattern.
In the United States the term calico is applied only to the printed fabric.
Collocations (2)
Calico bass (Zoology) , an edible, fresh-water fish (Pomoxys sparaides) of the rivers and lake of the Western United States (esp. of the Misissippi valley.), allied to the sunfishes, and so called from its variegated colors; -- called also calicoback, grass bass, strawberry bass, barfish, and bitterhead.
Calico printing , the art or process of impressing the figured patterns on calico.
Calico , adjective
Made of, or having the appearance of, calico; -- often applied to an animal, as a horse or cat, on whose body are large patches of a color strikingly different from its main color. [Colloquial United States]