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Tapestry vs Needlework - What's the difference?

tapestry | needlework |

As nouns the difference between tapestry and needlework

is that tapestry is a heavy woven cloth, often with decorative pictorial designs, normally hung on walls while needlework is the art or process of working with a needle especially in embroidery or needlepoint.

As a verb tapestry

is (intransitive) to decorate with tapestry, or as if with a tapestry.

tapestry

English

Noun

(tapestries)
  • A heavy woven cloth, often with decorative pictorial designs, normally hung on walls.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
    • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=3 citation , passage=Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine, while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry -hung wall behind.}}
  • (by extension)  Anything with variegated or complex details.
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=January-February
    • , author=Nancy Langston , title=The Fraught History of a Watery World , volume=101, issue=1, page=59 , magazine=(American Scientist) citation , passage=European adventurers found themselves within a watery world, a tapestry of streams, channels, wetlands, lakes and lush riparian meadows enriched by floodwaters from the Mississippi River.}}

    Verb

  • (intransitive) To decorate with tapestry, or as if with a tapestry.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1833, author=Adolphus Slade, title=Records of Travels in Turkey, Greece, &c. citation
    • , passage=We had run above twenty miles when the sun set, carpeting the sea, and tapestrying the sky with a rare unison of delicate green and golden hues
  • * {{quote-book, year=1854, date=September 13, author=, title=English Note-Books citation
    • , passage=The banqueting-hall, all open to the sky, and with thick curtains of ivy tapestrying the walls, and grass and weeds growing on the arches that overpass it, is indescribably beautiful.}}
  • * {{quote-book, year=1921, author=Israel Zangwill, title=The Cockpit: Romantic Drama in Three Acts citation
    • , passage=I present Bosnavina to its Duchess, I kiss the hem of her Majesty's robe and will tapestry her Palace with conquered flags.}}

    See also

    * tapetum lucidum

    needlework

    English

    Noun

  • the art or process of working with a needle especially in embroidery or needlepoint.
  • the product of such art or process.
  • the occupation or employment of a person skilled in embroidery, needlepoint, etc.

    • Synonyms

    * needlecraft * stitchery (3) * sewing (3)

    References

    * The Random House Dictionary 1973 (copyright)