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Armagh, district, Northern Ireland

(Encyclopedia)Armagh ärmäˈ [key], district, 258 sq mi (668 sq km), S Northern Ireland. Armagh rises from boggy, fertile lowlands in the north to barren hills in the south. It is the ...

fireproofing

(Encyclopedia)fireproofing, method of making normally combustible materials as nearly noncombustible as possible. Fireproofing generally applies to textiles and construction materials that are treated with a soluti...

taffeta

(Encyclopedia)taffeta, cloth, originally silk but now also made of synthetic fibers, supposed to have originated in Persia. The name, derived from Persian, means “twisted woven.” Taffeta is in the same class an...

Andernach

(Encyclopedia)Andernach änˈdərnäkh [key], city, Rhineland-Palatinate, W Germany, a port on the Rhine River. Its manufactures include chemicals, metals, synthetic fibers and related ...

Valleyfield

(Encyclopedia)Valleyfield, city (1991 pop. 27,598), S Que., Canada, on the Beauharnois canal, at the northeast end of Lake St. Francis, SW of Montreal. A port of entry and industrial center, it has cotton and synth...

satin

(Encyclopedia)satin, lustrous silk in which the filling is so arranged as to bind the warp as seldom as possible and so spaced that practically nothing shows but the warp. Satin was first woven by the ancient silk ...

polyester

(Encyclopedia)polyester, synthetic fiber, produced by the polymerization of the product formed when an alcohol and organic acid react. The outstanding characteristic of polyesters is their ability to resist wrinkli...

Tolyatti

(Encyclopedia)Tolyatti tōlyĕätˈtē [key], city (1989 pop. 631,000), W European Russia, on the Volga River, near Samara. It is the site of Russia's largest automobile factory, which receives its power from the h...

damask

(Encyclopedia)damask dămˈəsk [key] [from Damascus], fabric of silk, wool, linen, cotton, or synthetic fibers, with a pattern formed by the weaving; e.g., the ground may be in twill weave, and the contrasting des...

brocade

(Encyclopedia)brocade brōkādˈ [key], fabric, originally silk, generally reputed to have been developed to a high state of perfection in the 16th and 17th cent. in France, Italy, and Spain. In China the weaving o...