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Glite Dictionary
🛏️ Tufted fabric 🕯️ Candle core
candlewick

candlewick

1 8.0
A soft raised cord stitched into cloth to make patterns on bedspreads
  • noun
  • /ˈkændlˌwɪk/
  • US
translation icon : cordón de candlewick
  • The bedspread was beautifully decorated with a soft tufted candlewick design that added texture and warmth to the room.

Examples

  • She admired the candlewick patterns woven into the fabric, which gave the sofa a charming, vintage look.

  • The artisan carefully chose the candlewick style for the cushions to complement the elegant embroidery on the curtains.

  • Drifts of last year's dead needles made a brown candlewick pattern on the moss.

    Fiction book (1999)

Surface Forms

candlewick singular
candlewicks plural

Morphology

candlewick = candle + wick (semi-transparent) = candle + wick

The compound is analyzable as 'candle' + 'wick', but the textile sense is a metaphorical extension (a tuft resembling a wick), so the specific textile meaning is not fully predictable from parts.

Etymology

Candlewick as a fabric name comes from the parts candle and wick. A helpful way to remember it is that the raised cotton tufts look like a candle's wick ('small cord'), so the bedspread is named for those little 'wick'-like loops.