What does bombazine mean?
Bombazine is a closely woven fabric made with a silk warp and a worsted or cotton weft, giving it a distinctive dull, lustrous-free finish. Because it took black dye well without shining, it became the standard material for mourning dress in Europe from the seventeenth century onward, reaching its peak in the Victorian era, when widows were expected to wear deep black bombazine for years after a husband's death. The word derives through French and Italian from Medieval Latin terms connected to the Greek bombux, meaning silk. Today bombazine survives chiefly as a historical and literary term: novelists use it to signal bereavement, poverty, or stern respectability, and costume historians rely on it when describing period clothing. Its connotations are unrelentingly sombre — few fabrics are as tightly bound to grief — which makes it a vivid shorthand in writing about mourning customs and social ritual.
nounA fabric woven with a silk warp and a worsted or cotton weft, typically dyed black and used especially for mourning clothes.
- A fabric with a silk warp and worsted or cotton weft, usually dyed black and worn as mourning dress.
"The widow appeared at the funeral in plain bombazine, its dull surface absorbing the winter light."
"She ordered a bolt of black bombazine for the funeral clothes."
"In the novel, the governess's shabby bombazine gown marked her reduced circumstances."
The plural is rare but legitimate when referring to different varieties, colours, or bolts of the fabric.
"The draper stocked several bombazines, ranging from coarse black weaves to finer grey ones."
Queen Victoria wore it for four decades — bombazine was the fabric that defined Victorian mourning.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bombazine
Bombazine entered English in the early sixteenth century via French bombasin, borrowed from Italian bambasina, ultimately deriving from Medieval Latin bombyx-related terms rooted in Greek bombux, meaning 'silk' or 'silkworm'. The same Greek root underlies related English words such as bombast, reflecting the ancient prestige of silk in European trade. Originally the fabric could be made in various colours, but by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was overwhelmingly associated with black cloth worn in mourning.
How bombazine is actually used
A historical textile term, now largely encountered in literature about the 18th and 19th centuries. It carries strong associations with mourning, widowhood, and sombre formality, so it often appears figuratively to evoke grief or austere respectability.
Easily confused with bombazine
Bombast is inflated or pretentious language (or cotton padding used to stuff garments), while bombazine is a silk-and-worsted fabric; the two share an etymological thread through Greek bombux but mean entirely different things.