What does drugget mean?
Drugget is a coarse, hard-wearing fabric traditionally woven from wool — sometimes with linen or cotton — that served from roughly the seventeenth century onward as an economical floor covering in homes of modest means and, notably, as a protective layer laid over finer carpets in grander ones. The word denotes both the material itself and a covering made from it, so one may speak of a length of drugget or of a drugget spread across a floor. Its texture was rough and its appearance plain, which gave the word associations of thrift and utility rather than luxury. Today drugget survives chiefly in historical writing, museum catalogues, and accounts of period housekeeping, making it a useful term for readers of older literature and anyone interested in the domestic material culture of past centuries.
nounA coarse wool or wool-and-linen fabric, often with a cotton warp, used chiefly as a cheap floor covering; also the floor covering itself made of this material.
- A coarse woolen (or partly linen/cotton) fabric used especially for inexpensive floor coverings.
- A floor covering made of this fabric.
"The old inn had a worn drugget stretched across its stone-flagged passage."
"She rolled back the drugget each morning so the maids could sweep the boards beneath."
"The auction catalogue described the lot as an eighteenth-century needlework chair beside a length of plain drugget."
The plural is rare but attested when referring to multiple pieces or coverings of the fabric.
"New druggets were laid down throughout the lodge before the winter guests arrived."
Long before wall-to-wall carpet existed, a humble woolen cloth called drugget was what kept aristocratic toes warm — it even covered the floors of grand houses, just cheaply.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of drugget
Drugget entered English in the early seventeenth century, borrowed from French "droguet", a term for a kind of coarse woolen cloth. The further origin of the French word is uncertain, though some sources connect it to "drogue". It has always referred to inexpensive, utilitarian textile goods rather than fine fabrics.
How drugget is actually used
Now largely historical or antiquarian in register; encountered mainly in descriptions of period interiors, inventories, and older literature rather than everyday speech.
Easily confused with drugget
A rug is any small floor covering of various materials, while a drugget is specifically a coarse woven woolen fabric or covering made from it.
A drug is a medicinal or intoxicating substance and shares no meaning with drugget despite the shared spelling sequence.