madras


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Ma·dras

 (mə-drăs′, -dräs′)

mad·ras

 (măd′rəs, mə-drăs′, -dräs′)
n.
1. A lightweight, often plain-woven cotton cloth, usually with a plaid, striped, or checked pattern.
2. A similar lightweight patterned cloth made of silk or rayon.
3. A large handkerchief of brightly colored silk or cotton, often worn as a turban.

[After Madras (Chennai), India.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

madras

(ˈmædrəs; məˈdræs; -ˈdrɑːs)
n
1. (Textiles)
a. a strong fine cotton or silk fabric, usually with a woven stripe
b. (as modifier): madras cotton.
2. (Clothing & Fashion) something made of this, esp a scarf
3. (Cookery) a medium-hot curry: chicken madras.
[C19: by association with the Madras area]

Madras

(məˈdrɑːs; -ˈdræs)
n
1. (Placename) the former official name of Chennai
2. (Placename) the former name (until 1968) for the state of Tamil Nadu
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

mad•ras

(ˈmæd rəs, məˈdræs, -ˈdrɑs)

n.
1. a light cotton fabric of various weaves, esp. one in multicolored plaid or stripes.
2. a thin curtain fabric of a gauzelike weave with figures of heavier yarns.
3. a large brightly colored silk or cotton kerchief often used for turbans.
[1885–90; earlier Madras handkerchief, after Madras]

Ma•dras

(məˈdræs, -ˈdrɑs)

n.
1. the capital of Tamil Nadu state, in SE India, on the Bay of Bengal. 4,277,000.
2. former name of Tamil Nadu.
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.madras - a state in southeastern India on the Bay of Bengal (south of Andhra Pradesh)Madras - a state in southeastern India on the Bay of Bengal (south of Andhra Pradesh); formerly Madras
Bharat, India, Republic of India - a republic in the Asian subcontinent in southern Asia; second most populous country in the world; achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1947
2.madras - a city in Tamil Nadu on the Bay of BengalMadras - a city in Tamil Nadu on the Bay of Bengal; formerly Madras
Bharat, India, Republic of India - a republic in the Asian subcontinent in southern Asia; second most populous country in the world; achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1947
3.madras - a light patterned cotton cloth
cloth, fabric, textile, material - artifact made by weaving or felting or knitting or crocheting natural or synthetic fibers; "the fabric in the curtains was light and semitransparent"; "woven cloth originated in Mesopotamia around 5000 BC"; "she measured off enough material for a dress"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
References in classic literature ?
The British Crown exercises a real and despotic dominion over the larger portion of this vast country, and has a governor-general stationed at Calcutta, governors at Madras, Bombay, and in Bengal, and a lieutenant-governor at Agra.
The celebrated East India Company was all-powerful from 1756, when the English first gained a foothold on the spot where now stands the city of Madras, down to the time of the great Sepoy insurrection.
Cox and Greenwood; but the Major being in Madras at the time, had no particular call for coals.
The men who had seen her described her to me as "nothing much to look at." But in the great Indian famine of the seventies that ship, already old then, made some wonderful dashes across the Gulf of Bengal with cargoes of rice from Rangoon to Madras.
Some, such as those of Paris, Petersburg, Berlin, Stockholm, Hamburg, Malta, Lisbon, Benares, Madras, and others, transmitted their good wishes; the rest maintained a prudent silence, quietly awaiting the result.
I was changed from Agra to Madras, and from there to Blair Island in the Andamans.
Paris, 27; Glasgow, 27; London, 28; Vienna, 28; Augsburg, 28; Braunschweig, 28; K:onigsberg, 29; Cologne, 29; Dresden, 29; Hamburg, 29; Berlin, 30; Bombay, 30; Warsaw, 31; Breslau, 31; Odessa, 32; Munich, 33; Strasburg, 33, Pesth, 35; Cassel, 35; Lisbon, 36; Liverpool, 36; Prague, 37; Madras, 37; Bucharest, 39; St.
"Shif'less!" said Miss Ophelia to herself, proceeding to tumble over the drawer, where she found a nutmeg-grater and two or three nutmegs, a Methodist hymn-book, a couple of soiled Madras handkerchiefs, some yarn and knitting-work, a paper of tobacco and a pipe, a few crackers, one or two gilded china-saucers with some pomade in them, one or two thin old shoes, a piece of flannel carefully pinned up enclosing some small white onions, several damask table-napkins, some coarse crash towels, some twine and darning-needles, and several broken papers, from which sundry sweet herbs were sifting into the drawer.
if I succeed in giving it the odour of the rose or the carnation, or, what would be still better, a completely new scent; if I restored to this queen of flowers its natural distinctive perfume, which she has lost in passing from her Eastern to her European throne, and which she must have in the Indian peninsula at Goa, Bombay, and Madras, and especially in that island which in olden times, as is asserted, was the terrestrial paradise, and which is called Ceylon, -- oh, what glory!
[6] A similar interesting case is recorded in the Madras Medical Quart.
Thus it appears that the sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well.
He has got hold now of a Madras cook--a blamed fraud that I hunted out of my cookhouse with a rattan.