DRAPERY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does drapery mean? 

• DRAPERY (noun)
  The noun DRAPERY has 2 senses:

1. hanging cloth used as a blind (especially for a window)

2. cloth gracefully draped and arranged in loose folds

  Familiarity information: DRAPERY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DRAPERY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Hanging cloth used as a blind (especially for a window)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

curtain; drape; drapery; mantle; pall

Hypernyms ("drapery" is a kind of...):

blind; screen (a protective covering that keeps things out or hinders sight)

furnishing ((usually plural) the instrumentalities (furniture and appliances and other movable accessories including curtains and rugs) that make a home (or other area) livable)

Meronyms (parts of "drapery"):

eyehole; eyelet (a small hole (usually round and finished around the edges) in cloth or leather for the passage of a cord or hook or bar)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "drapery"):

drop; drop cloth; drop curtain (a curtain that can be lowered and raised onto a stage from the flies; often used as background scenery)

festoon (a curtain of fabric draped and bound at intervals to form graceful curves)

frontal (a drapery that covers the front of an altar)

portiere (a heavy curtain hung across a doorway)

shower curtain (a curtain that keeps water from splashing out of the shower area)

theater curtain; theatre curtain (a hanging cloth that conceals the stage from the view of the audience; rises or parts at the beginning and descends or closes between acts and at the end of a performance)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cloth gracefully draped and arranged in loose folds

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("drapery" is a kind of...):

cloth; fabric; material; textile (artifact made by weaving or felting or knitting or crocheting natural or synthetic fibers)

Derivation:

drape (cover or dress loosely with cloth)

 Context examples 

Above the temples, amidst wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in its character and consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It must be confessed that the artist sometimes got possession of the woman, and indulged in antique coiffures, statuesque attitudes, and classic draperies.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I could not but observe, however, that her fall was very carefully executed, and that she was fortunate enough, in spite of her insensibility, to arrange her drapery and attitude into a graceful and classical design.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

To see him walking like a comic opera Sultan, with this badge of authority in his hand, his black beard bristling in front of him, his toes pointing at each step, and a train of wide-eyed Indian girls behind him, clad in their slender drapery of bark cloth, is one of the most grotesque of all the pictures which I will carry back with me.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

They were delighted with the renovation and decorations of their rooms; with the new drapery, and fresh carpets, and rich tinted china vases: they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed; the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark and coarse drapery.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

This ruddy shine issued from the great dining-room, whose two- leaved door stood open, and showed a genial fire in the grate, glancing on marble hearth and brass fire-irons, and revealing purple draperies and polished furniture, in the most pleasant radiance.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The crimson curtain hung before the arch: slight as was the separation this drapery formed from the party in the adjoining saloon, they spoke in so low a key that nothing of their conversation could be distinguished beyond a soothing murmur.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The head was finished already: there was but the background to tint and the drapery to shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips—a soft curl here and there to the tresses—a deeper tinge to the shadow of the lash under the azured eyelid.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)