• (British, GA) IPA: /ˈdæm.əsk/

damask

1. An ornate silk fabric originating from Damascus.

   True damasks are pure silk.

   • 1836, Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

     […] but what struck Tom's fancy most was a strange, grim-looking, high backed chair, carved in the most fantastic manner, with a flowered damask cushion, and the round knobs at the bottom of the legs carefully tied up in red cloth, as if it had got the gout in its toes.

2. Linen so woven that a pattern is produced by the different directions of the thread, without contrast of colour.
3. A heavy woolen or worsted stuff with a pattern woven in the same way as the linen damask; made for furniture covering and hangings.
   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, OCLC 7780546 ↗; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], OCLC 2666860 ↗, page 0016 ↗:

     Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.

4. Damascus steel
5. The peculiar markings or water of such steel.
6. A damask rose, Rosa × damascena.
7. A grayish-pink color, like that of the damask rose.

    

   • 1849, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

     Thursday. D. certainly improved. Better night. Slight tinge of damask revisiting cheek.

• French: damas
• German: Damast, Damastgewebe
• Italian: damasco
• Portuguese: damasco
• Russian: дама́ст
• Spanish: damasco

• German: Damast

• French: lie-de-vin

damask

1. Of a grayish-pink color, like that of the damask rose.
   • 1973, Stephen Sondheim, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

     My cage has many rooms / Damask and dark / Nothing there sings, / Not even my lark.

   • 1602, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

     But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud, / Feed on her damask cheek

   • 1849, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

     They had a lurking suspicion even, that he died of secret love; though I must say there was a picture of him in the house with a damask nose, which concealment did not appear to have ever preyed upon.

• French: lie-de-vin

damask (damasks, present participle damasking; past and past participle damasked)

1. To decorate or weave in damascene patterns

• Italian: damascare
• Portuguese: damasquinar
• Spanish: adamascar

damask

1. Relating to, or originating at, the city of Damascus.