Word.ws English Dictionary

nankin

nankin is the alternative form of nankeen.

Meaning of nankeen

Noun

nankeen (countable and uncountable, plural nankeens)

  1. A type of cotton cloth originally from Nanking in China.
    • "Well, I wore my diamond, as you may imagine, and rigged myself in my best clothes, viz. my blue coat and brass buttons before-mentioned, nankeen trousers and silk stockings, a white waistcoat, and a pair of white gloves bought for the occasion."1849, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter V, in The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond, Bradbury and Evans, page 55

Proper noun capitalized: Nankin

Nankin

  1. (obsolete) Obsolete form of Nanking, former name of Nanjing: a prefecture-level city, the capital of Jiangsu, China.
    • NANKEEN
      A cotton fabric, of firm texture, woven plain. It is made principally at Nankin, China, from which place it derives its name.1872, C. M. Brown, L. Gates, Scissors and Yardstick, Hartford, Conn., page 44
    • The Ming Dynasty reigned till the year 1644, but the last thirty years of their government was a period of continual strife between the Government (who had moved the capital from Nankin to Pekin) and the barbarous tribes of Manchu Tartars on the frontiers, and with insurrections in the interior.1891, A. Egmont Hake, “Events Connected with the Taeping Rebellion”, in Events in the Taeping Rebellion, London: W. H. Allen and Co. Ltd., page 99

Forms of nankin

pluralnankins

Questions about nankin

What is nankin the alternative form of?
Nankin is the alternative form of nankeen.
What part of speech is nankin?
Nankin is a proper noun.

Words near nankin in the dictionary

  1. nankeen kestrel
  2. Nankeen night heron
  3. nankeens
  4. nankhatai
  5. nankhatais
  6. nankin
  7. nanking
  8. Nanking cherry
  9. Nankingese
  10. nankins
  11. nanks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nankin (page history and authors); Nankin (page history and authors); nankeen (page history and authors). 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.

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Cite this entry: “nankin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nankin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.