What does barracan mean?
Barracan is a coarse woollen cloth, typically woven with a twill, that was widely used in earlier centuries for hard-wearing garments such as cloaks, coats, and petticoats. The name entered European languages through Mediterranean trade, ultimately tracing back to an Arabic word for a similar fabric, and it appears in English sources from around the early seventeenth century onward under spellings including baracan and barragon. Never a luxury textile, barracan belonged to the everyday wardrobe of ordinary people, prized for warmth and durability rather than fineness. Today the word is obsolete in ordinary use, but it survives in historical inventories, costume scholarship, and period literature, where it helps evoke the textures of daily life in past eras. For readers of old documents, encountering barracan is a reminder that even common fabrics once carried names that travelled across languages and seas.
nounA coarse woollen fabric, often with a twilled weave, formerly used for clothing such as cloaks and undergarments.
- A coarse woollen fabric of twilled weave, used historically for cloaks, petticoats, and other garments.
"The merchant displayed bolts of barracan alongside finer broadcloths at the market stall."
"She wrapped herself in a cloak of dark barracan against the winter wind."
"The inventory listed several yards of barracan among the draper's stock."
As a mass noun denoting fabric, barracan usually appears uninflected; a plural form would apply only when counting distinct types or bolts of the cloth.
"The warehouse held barracans of several colours and weights."
This humble woollen cloth crossed from the Arabic-speaking Mediterranean into English wardrobes — a fabric whose very name is a souvenir of medieval trade routes.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of barracan
The word barracan comes from Arabic barrakān, denoting a coarse woollen cloth, and passed into European languages via Mediterranean trade, appearing in Spanish and Italian forms before entering English in the early seventeenth century. It is recorded in English under variant spellings such as baracan and barragon, which refer to the same fabric. The term is thus a linguistic relic of the textile commerce linking the Arabic-speaking world with Europe.
How barracan is actually used
Barracan is now largely obsolete, surviving mainly in historical texts, costume studies, and period fiction. It carries no strong connotations today beyond its association with sturdy, everyday clothing of past centuries.
Easily confused with barracan
Barragon is a variant spelling or closely related name for the same coarse woollen cloth; the two terms refer to essentially the same fabric rather than different materials.