samite
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Old French samit, from Medieval Latin samitum, examitum, from Byzantine Greek ἑξάμιτον (hexámiton), from ἕξ (héx, “six”) + μίτος (mítos, “thread”).
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]samite (countable and uncountable, plural samites)
- A material of rich silk, sometimes with gold threads, especially prized during the Middle Ages.
- 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Vivien”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, pages 104–105:
- [A] robe / Of samite without price, that more exprest / Than hid her, clung about her lissome limbs, / In colour like the satin-shining palm / On sallows in the windy gleams of March: [...]
- 1903, Howard Pyle, The Story of King Arthur and His Knights:
- And in the center of that lake there hath for some time been seen the appearance as of a women's arm--exceedingly beautiful and clad in white samite, and the hand of this arm holdeth a sword of such exceeding excellence and beauty that no eye hath ever beheld like.