brocades

Noun

brocade (countable and uncountable, plural brocades)

1. A thick heavy fabric into which raised patterns have been woven, originally in gold and silver; more recently any cloth incorporating raised, woven patterns.
   • Madame Legarde, the "glass of fashion and the nurse of form," (alias the most fashionable of milliners,) has comfortably assured me, "that my figure has great merit, and only requires cultivation:" this is to be done by tissues, brocades, and laces, which are now scattered round me in charming...1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 65–66
2. An item decorated with brocade.
3. Any of several species of noctuid moths such as some species in the genera Calophasia and Hadena
   • Other species considered occasional migrants have become established in the UK in recent years, such as the ... sombre brocade, Blair's mocha, Flame brocade, and Clifden nonpareil.2016, P.P. Mary et al., edited by Akshay Kumar Chakravarthy et al., Arthropod Diversity and Conservation in the Tropics and Sub-tropics, Springer, →ISBN
4. (figuratively) A decorative pattern.
   • The shrubbery around the cottages is a brocade of lawns and shrubs intermixed, in fancy patterns, with gravel walks, in various directions, which wind into the woods.1826, Thomas Dudley Fosbroke, A picturesque and topographical account of Cheltenham, and its Vicinity

See all 5 meanings of brocade