drugget

English

Etymology

From French droguet, from drogue (“cheap”), of uncertain origin.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈdɹʌɡɪt/
• Rhymes: -ʌɡɪt

Noun

drugget (countable and uncountable, plural druggets)

1. An inexpensive coarse woolen cloth, used mainly for clothing. [from 16^thc.]
2. A floor covering made of drugget. [from 17^thc.]
   • 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIV, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 182:

     There was the handsome carpet, new on the occasion of Mr. Gooch's marriage, but it was carefully covered with a drab drugget; the curtains were of a pretty pink damask, but they were enveloped in brown holland bags, by which same material the chairs and sofas were covered.

   • 1904 December, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Second Stain:

     This carpet was a small square drugget in the centre of the room […]

   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter II, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0091:

     There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

   • 2023 June 28, Stephen Roberts, “Bradshaw's Britain: Alton to Exeter”, in RAIL, number 986, page 57:

     Bradshaw is always ready to talk 'manufactories', and here he confides that the town [Basingstoke] "carried on a rather considerable business in druggets, which has since fallen off". (Druggets has me reaching for my dictionary - it refers to a coarse woollen fabric used to make floor coverings).

Derived terms

• druggeting