gingham

/ˈgɪŋəm/

Other forms: ginghams

Checked cotton cloth is called gingham. If you're planning on eating lunch at the beach, you might want to bring your gingham picnic blanket — and plenty of sunscreen.

When you see the cheerful checked pattern of gingham fabric, it probably makes you think of curtains in homey kitchen windows, your grandma's tablecloth, or little girls' summer dresses trimmed in rickrack. Most gingham is patterned with small checks of white and one other color. The word comes, via the Dutch gingang, from a Malay word that means "striped."

Definitions of gingham

1. noun

   a clothing fabric in a plaid weave
   type of:

   cloth, fabric, material, textile

   artifact made by weaving or felting or knitting or crocheting natural or synthetic fibers