houndstooth
houndstooth Lexical Profile
houndstooth Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Featuring or woven with a two-colored textile pattern of small, broken, jagged checks.
"She wore a classic black-and-white houndstooth blazer to the autumn conference."
• noun
A duotone textile pattern characterized by broken checks or abstract four-pointed shapes, traditionally woven in dark and light wool.
"The tailor recommended a subtle brown houndstooth for the winter overcoat."
Cloth or fabric woven with a broken-check pattern.
"Several bolts of heavy wool houndstooth were stacked on the worktable."
Word Origin & Etymology
Coined in the 1930s as a solid compound of "hound's tooth," referring to the resemblance of the jagged, four-pointed checks in the traditional Scottish woven wool pattern to the back teeth of a dog.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.