noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A process for treating fabrics and textiles, used to stretch, shrink and fix the woven cloth in length and width before cutting and producing, to reduce the shrinkage which would otherwise occur after washing. uncountable

Etymology

Named after Sanford Lockwood Cluett (1874–1968), who patented the process in 1930, + -ization. From Sanford + -ization.

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