buck·ram (b k r m)n.1. A coarse cotton fabric heavily sized with glue, used for stiffening garments and in bookbinding. 2. Archaic Rigid formality. adj. Resembling or suggesting buckram, as in stiffness or formality: "a wondrous buckram style" (Thomas Carlyle). tr.v. buck·ramed, buck·ram·ing, buck·rams To stiffen with or as if with buckram.
[Middle English bukeram, fine linen, from Old French boquerant and from Old Italian bucherame, both after Bukhara (Bukhoro), from which fine linen was once imported.] |
ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
| Noun | 1. | buckram - a coarse cotton fabric stiffened with glue; used in bookbinding and to stiffen clothingcloth, fabric, textile, material - artifact made by weaving or felting or knitting or crocheting natural or synthetic fibers; "the fabric in the curtains was light and semitransparent"; "woven cloth originated in Mesopotamia around 5000 BC"; "she measured off enough material for a dress" |
| Verb | 1. | buckram - stiffen with or as with buckram; "buckram the skirt"stiffen - make stiff or stiffer; "Stiffen the cream by adding gelatine" |
| Adj. | 1. | buckram - rigidly formal; "a starchy manner"; "the letter was stiff and formal"; "his prose has a buckram quality"formal - being in accord with established forms and conventions and requirements (as e.g. of formal dress); "pay one's formal respects"; "formal dress"; "a formal ball"; "the requirement was only formal and often ignored"; "a formal education" |