filigree
UK/ˈfɪl.ɪ.ɡɹiː/
filigree noun: a delicate and intricate ornamentation made from platinum, gold or silver (or sometimes other metal) twisted wire.
Noun
filigree (countable and uncountable, plural filigrees)
- A delicate and intricate ornamentation made from platinum, gold or silver (or sometimes other metal) twisted wire.
- To carry pure death in an earring, a casket, / A signet, a fan-mount, a filigree basket!1844, Robert Browning, The Labratory
- There were antiquities from Central Italy, made by the best modern houses in that department of industry; […] Genoese velvets and filigree, Neapolitan coral, Roman cameos, Geneva jewellery, Arab lanterns, rosaries blest all round by the Pope himself, and an infinite variety of lumber.1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC
- Anything resembling such intricate ornamentation.
- But why speak about her? It is probable that we shall not hear of her again from this moment to the end of time, and that when the great filigree iron gates are once closed on her, she and her awful sister will never issue therefrom into this little world of history.1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 1, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC
- The trees grew so thickly and their foliage spread so widely that I could see nothing of the moon-light save that here and there the high branches made a tangled filigree against the starry sky.1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC
Verb
filigree (third-person singular simple present filigrees, present participle filigreeing, simple past and past participle filigreed)
filigree meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
filigree in Hindi
- delicate and intricate ornamentation made from gold or silver twisted wire
- तारकाम tārkām, तारकशी tārkaśī
filigree in Tamil
- சரிகைச் சித்திரவேலை, தங்கத்திலும்
filigree in Marathi
- delicate and intricate ornamentation made from gold or silver twisted wire
- तारकाम tārkām
filigree in Urdu
- delicate and intricate ornamentation made from gold or silver twisted wire
- تَارْکَشِی tārkaśī
More languagesFewer languages
- filigree in Bengali
- তারকষি tarkośi
- filigree in Malayalam
- കസവുചിത്രത്തുന്നൽ, ചിത്രത്തുന്നൽ, ഗോതിക്രീതിയിൽ ശിലയിലുള്ള കൊത്തുവേല, അതിലോലമായ കരവേല
- filigree in Odia
- ତାରକସି tārakasi
- filigree in Indonesian
- filigran
- filigree in Persian
- تَارْکَشِی târ-kaši
Examples of filigree in a sentence
- Her brown hair was waved in front and done up behind in a great twist, held by a tortoiseshell comb with gold filigree.1915 October, Willa Sibert Cather, chapter I, in The Song of the Lark, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company […], →OCLC...
- After that, having studied herself gravely in a long glass, she took from one of the drawers of her dressing-table a black leather card-case cornered in silver filigree, but found it empty.1921, Booth Tarkington, Alice Adams:
- Only the hair as it arched so beautifully from her temples was mixed with silver, and the two simple plaits that lay on her shoulders were filigree of silver and brown.1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:
- Justh added considerable filigree in the course of the 66-minute performance, none sanctioned by the score, but captivating enough to justify its berth.2007 December 1, Allan Kozinn, “That Same Old Beat, With Brand-New Choices”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 17 Jan...
Forms of filigree
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | filigrees |
| alternative form | filagree |
| alternative form (archaic) | fillagree |
| alternative form (archaic) | filligree |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | filigrees |
| present participle | filigreeing |
| past participle | filigreed |
| past | filigreed |
Origin of filigree
From French filigrane, from Italian filigrana, from Latin fīlum (“thread”) + grānum (“grain”).
Words formed from filigree
Words that rhyme with filigree
Questions about filigree
- What does filigree mean?
- Filigree means a delicate and intricate ornamentation made from platinum, gold or silver (or sometimes other metal) twisted wire.
- What is filigree in Hindi?
- Filigree in Hindi is तारकाम (tārkām), तारकशी (tārkaśī). See Filigree meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use filigree in a sentence?
- Her brown hair was waved in front and done up behind in a great twist, held by a tortoiseshell comb with gold filigree.
- What part of speech is filigree?
- Filigree can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce filigree?
- Filigree is pronounced /ˈfɪl.ɪ.ɡɹiː/ (UK).
- What is the plural of filigree?
- The plural of filigree is filigrees.
Words near filigree in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: filigree (page history and authors); filigree (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); filigree (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-filigree.ogg.
Cite this entry: “filigree.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/filigree. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.