herringbone
3
6.3
- noun
- /ˈhɛrɪŋboʊn/
:
espiga de pescado
- He has longish gray-brown hair, a tattersall button-down shirt, a brown tweed herringbone jacket, and corduroy jeans.
- herringbone pattern
Examples
-
I zipped the jug into my briefcase and strode on, resolving to buy myself a herringbone tweed jacket.
Fiction book (1993) -
The terrace was made of worn bricks in a herringbone pattern.
-
A lovely silk and mohair herringbone.
-
His suit today was herringbone gray with an elegant wine-red vest.
Fiction book (1990) -
He approached in the tweed of the day, a somber herringbone.
Fiction book (1993) -
Stripes, plaids, and herringbones collided, vying for attention.
Fiction book (1999) -
Mrs. Harper herself wore sharp-toed high heels, which she kept planted on the rug in a herringbone pattern to show off her trim ankles.
Fiction book (1995) -
With the remaining pieces, she planned to build a complex overbraid, lapping and weaving in a herringbone pattern like a favorite raffia basket of hers.
Fiction book (1997) -
There's another Californian, a man in his late forties who wears a herringbone tweed jacket and a yarmulke over his thick hair collected in a ponytail.
Fiction book (1994) -
Ordinary subway tiles become extraordinary when arranged in a herringbone pattern for the backsplash.
Synonyms
1
5.6
A repeated V-shaped arrangement of short lines or blocks on a surface
Compounds
How Complex
15
5.6
25
6.0
3
6.3
- Specialized
1
5.0
9
1.0
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
herringbone = herring + bone (semi-transparent) = herring + bone
Formed from 'herring' + 'bone' with a metaphorical sense: the pattern resembles the arrangement of a herring's bones, so the components are recognizable but the meaning (a textile/flooring pattern) is not directly predictable without the metaphor.
Etymology
Herringbone comes from the look of a fish skeleton, with herring meaning 'small fish' and bone because the V-shaped lines look like a herring's bones. So a herringbone pattern is a V-shaped design often used in fabric or flooring.