Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Calico

Cal′i·co, n.; pl. Calicoes (#). [So called because first imported from Calicut, in the East Indies: cf. F. calicot.] 1. Plain white cloth made from cotton, but which receives distinctive names according to quality and use, as, super calicoes, shirting calicoes, unbleached calicoes, etc. [Eng.]

The importation of printed or stained colicoes appears to have been coeval with the establishment of the East India Company . Beck (Draper's Dict. ).

2. Cotton cloth printed with a figured pattern.

☞ In the United States the term calico is applied only to the printed fabric.

Calico bass (Zoöl.), an edible, fresh-water fish (Pomoxys sparaides) of the rivers and lake of the Western United States (esp. of the Misissippi valley.), allied to the sunfishes, and so called from its variegated colors; — called also calicoback, grass bass, strawberry bass, barfish, and bitterhead. — Calico printing, the art or process of impressing the figured patterns on calico.

Cal′i·co, a. Made of, or having the appearance of, calico; — often applied to an animal, as a horse or cat, on whose body are large patches of a color strikingly different from its main color. [Colloq. U. S.]

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.