fustian

Etymology

of grey fustian (noun sense 1).]] The noun is derived from Middle English fustian (“type of fabric, probably made from cotton, flax, or wool; piece of fustian spread over a bed or mattress”) [and other forms], from Old French fustaine, fustaigne (modern French futaine), from Medieval Latin fūstāneum, from (pannus) fūstāneus or (tela) fūstānea, of disputed origin. Sense 3 (“inflated, pompous, or pretentious speech or writing”) is possibly from the fact that the fabric was sometimes used to make cushion- and pillowcases, thus suggesting that the speech or writing is “padded” or “stuffed”; compare bombast. The relationship between sense 4 (“hot drink made of a mixture of alcoholic beverages with egg yolk, lemon, and spices”) and the fabric is unclear. The adjective is from an attributive use of the noun. cognates * Italian fustagno * Occitan fustani * Portuguese fustão * Spanish fustan

noun

1. Originally, a kind of coarse fabric made from cotton and flax; now, a kind of coarse twilled cotton, or cotton and linen, stuff with a short pile and often dyed a dull colour, which is chiefly prepared for menswear.
   Fustian, of which I found only one entry before 1401, occurs frequently in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It appears to have been a ribbed cloth. […] On one occasion (1443) it is described as 'white ribbed fustian.' 1882, James E[dwin] Thorold Rogers, “On the Price of Textile Fabrics and Clothing”, in A History of Agriculture and Prices in England[…], volumes IV (1401–1582), Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 568
   The different names given to fustian cloths depend upon their degree of fineness, and the manner in which they are woven and finished. […] In all fustians there is a warp and filling, or weft thread, independent of the additional filling-thread forming the pile; but in corduroys the pile thread is only 'thrown in' where the corded portions are and is absent in the narrow spaces between. 1903, “FUSTIAN”, in Daniel Coit Gilman, Harry Thurston Peck, Frank Moore Colby, editors, The New International Encyclopædia, volume VIII, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, →OCLC, page 30, column 2
   The East India company was pursuing its own financial interests, but in doing so was also fostering the establishment of industries such as calico printing — an industry that would have not achieved the same degree of accomplishment if it had confined itself simply to the printing of European fustians (mixed cottons) and linens, both of which were more difficult to print on than cotton. 2009, Giorgio Riello, “The Indian Apprenticeship: The Trade of Indian Textiles and the Making of European Cottons”, in Giorgio Riello, Tirthankar Roy, editors, How India Clothed the World: The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500-1850 (Global Economic History Series; 4), Leiden, Boston, Mass.: Brill, →ISSN, part III (Regions of Change: Indian Textiles and European Development), page 334
2. A class of fabric including corduroy and velveteen.
   Fustian is a species of coarse twilled cotton, but may be considered as a general term which comprehends several varieties of cotton fabrics, as corduroy, jean, velveret, velveteen, thickset, thickset cord, and other stout cloths for men's wearing apparel; from their strength and cheapness, they are very serviceable to agricultural people. It is generally dyed of an olive, leaden, or other colours. […] Fustians are either plain or twilled. 1855, T[homas] Webster, Mrs. [William] Parkes, “Book XVII. On the Various Textile Fabrics for Clothing and Furniture.”, in D[avid] M[eredith] Reese, editor, An Encyclopædia of Domestic Economy:[…], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers,[…], →OCLC, chapter IV (Cotton Fabrics for Dress and Furniture), section VIII (Description of the Various Cotton Fabrics), paragraph 5665, page 962
   Fustian originally referred to a large variety of textiles of linen-and-cotton blend; later it came to mean all-cotton textiles. Common varieties of the fancy fustians are corduroy, jean, pillow, thickset, velveret and velveteen. 1986 fall (June), Richard Henning Field, “Lunenberg-German Household Textiles: The Evidence from Lunenburg County Estate Inventories, 1780–1830”, in Material History Bulletin = Bulletin d’histoire de la Culture Matérielle, volume 24, Hull, Que.: Canadian Museum of Civilization; Ottawa, Ont.: National Museum of Science and Technology, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-04-07, page 18, column 2
   Fustians, a large group of general-purpose fabrics were mainly woven with a tight heavy texture. Sometimes they were plainly woven, but fustians could also be fashioned with “tufts” creating fabric like corduroy or velveteen. Fustians were used for anything from draperies to dresses or upholstery to men’s waistcoats. 2007, Susan M. Ouellette, “Flax from the Field, Cotton from the Sea”, in US Textile Production in Historical Perspective: A Case Study from Massachusetts (Studies in American Popular History and Culture), New York, N.Y., Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, pages 34–35
   In the nineteenth century fustian cutting was a major occupation right across the North West and thousands of people in the cotton towns were employed at it. Sometimes the work was done at tables but more often than not the cloth was stretched across rollers and they'd walk up and down all day, slicing through the threads of the weave row by row, using tiny blades fashioned from watch springs and honed until they were as sharp as razorblades. Cutting even a basic fustian, they could walk ten or eleven miles over the length of a shift. With more sophisticated fustians – fabrics like velveteen, for instance – you had to walk further, much further. 2008, Steve Haywood, chapter 9, in Narrowboat Dreams: A Journey North by England’s Waterways, Chichester, West Sussex: Summersdale Publishers, page 103
3. (figurative) Inflated, pompous, or pretentious speech or writing; bombast; also (archaic), incoherent or unintelligible speech or writing; gibberish, nonsense.
   What made [Édouard] Manet a veritable prophet in his day, was that he brought a simple formula to a period in which the official art was merely fustian and conventionality. 1923, Ambroise Vollard, “Cézanne Aspires to the Salon of Bouguereau (1866–1895)”, in Harold L. Van Doren, transl., Paul Cézanne: His Life and Art[…], New York, N.Y.: Nicholas L. Brown, →OCLC, page 49
   Anything grandiose or historically based tends to sound flat and banal when it reaches English, partly because translators get stuck between contradictory imperatives: juggling fidelity to the original sense with what is vocally viable, they tend to resort to a genteel fustian which lacks either poetic resonance or demotic realism, adding to a sense of artificiality rather than enhancing credibility. 1 March 2014, Rupert Christiansen, “English translations rarely sing”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review), London: Telegraph Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, page R19
4. (alcoholic beverages, archaic) Chiefly in rum fustian: a hot drink made of a mixture of alcoholic beverages (as beer, gin, and sherry or white wine) with egg yolk, lemon, and spices.
   RUMFUSTIAN. The yolks of twelve eggs, one quart of strong beer, one bottle of white wine, half a pint of gin, a grated nutmeg, the juice from the peeling of a lemon, a small quantity of cinnamon, and sufficient sugar to sweeten it;[…]] [1827, [Richard Cook], “RUMFUSTIAN”, in Oxford Night Caps. Being a Collection of Receipts for Making Various Beverages Used in the University, Oxford, Oxfordshire, London: […] Henry Slatter; and Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green,[…], →OCLC, page 24
   Rum Fustian is a "night-cap" made precisely in the same way as the preceding [egg-posset or egg-flip], with the yolks of twelve eggs, a quart of strong home-brewed beer, a bottle of white wine, half-a-pint of gin, a grated nutmeg, the juice from the peel of a lemon, a small quantity of cinnamon, and sugar sufficient to sweeten it. 1832, William Hone, “January 9”, in The Year Book of Daily Recreation and Information,[…], London: […] [J. Haddon] for Thomas Tegg,[…], →OCLC, column 62
   Rum fustian [i]s prepared at Oxford as follows: whisk up to a froth the yolks of six eggs and add them to a pint of gin and a quart of strong beer; boil up a bottle of sherry in a sauce-pan, with a stick of cinnamon or nutmeg grated, a dozen large lumps of sugar, and the rind of a lemon peeled very thin; when the wine boils, it is poured upon the beer and gin and drank hot. 1853, [Robert F. Riddell], “Drinks, Liqueurs, etc.”, in Indian Domestic Economy and Receipt Book;[…], 4th edition, Madras: […] D. P. L. C. Connor, at the Christian Knowledge Society’s Press,[…], →OCLC, page 350

adj

1. Made out of fustian (noun sense 1).
   Her husband was trying to calm her down, assuage her, and in the end what she did was to put a handkerchief over her face and secure it with the brim of a fustian hat. 1972, Edna O’Brien, Night, revised edition, New York, N.Y.: Farrar Straus Giroux, published 1987, page 103
2. Of a person, or their speech or writing: using inflated, pompous, or pretentious language; bombastic; grandiloquent; also (obsolete) using incoherent or unintelligible language.
3. (obsolete)
   1. Imaginary; invented.
   2. Useless; worthless.