Definition of "madras"

madras

/məˈdɹæs/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural madrases
1. A brightly colored cotton fabric with a checked or striped pattern.
  Quotations
  A black woman in blue cotton gown, red-and-yellow Madras turban […] crouched against the wall.
  1887, G. W. Cable, “Au Large”, in Scribner's Monthly, volume 35, page 90
  The service makes available, during limited weekend hours, a handful of the company’s items—cargo shorts, tank tops, and the like—to the Hamptons house guest who discovers that he can’t make it to Monday without purchasing one of those weird madras patchwork blazers
  2004 August 30, The New Yorker, page 38
  In one area, however, I stick close to my roots: an unreconstructed loved of madras cloth. Madras (pronounced, in the US, with the emphasis on the first syllable) is a lightweight carded cotton cloth with a bright plaid pattern, first produced in and named for the Indian city now known as Chennai.
  2023 June 10, Robert Armstrong, “Check yourself: why I love madras cloth”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 4
2. A large handkerchief of this fabric, worn on the head in the West Indies.
3. Alternative form of Madras (“type of curry”)
  Quotations
  Gerry ordered poppadoms and parathas and then he was interrupted by requests for vindaloos, chicken madrases and sag joshes, rice, raita and nan, from Priest, Morgan and Maria Grazia.
  2002, Desmond Barry, A Bloody Good Friday, page 157