Gingham

//ˈɡɪŋ.əm// noun, slang

noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A cotton fabric made from dyed and white yarn woven in checks. uncountable

    "And she found that she was not wearing a despised muslin frock! Her dress was gingham!—an adorable plaid with long sleeves, and a patch-pocket low down on the right side!"

  2. 2
    a clothing fabric in a plaid weave wordnet
  3. 3
    A dress made from that material. countable

    ""We have put on the pale blue silks that we wore at Isabella's wedding; that, however, was Georgiana's thought," continued Helen; "she said it would be impossible to go to church in our pink ginghams.""

  4. 4
    An umbrella. UK, archaic, countable, slang, uncountable

    "[…] their ginghams stuck under their arms at right angles to their back-bones […]"

Synonyms

All synonyms
corduroycottonfabricnylon

Example

More examples

"Wash your face and comb your hair and put on your gingham."

Etymology

From Malay genggang (“ajar; apart”), or a corruption of French Guingamp, the name of a town in Brittany, France, where this cloth may have been made.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.