tissues

Noun

tissue (countable and uncountable, plural tissues)

1. Thin, woven, gauzelike fabric.
   • 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. A fine transparent silk material, used for veils, etc.; specifically, cloth interwoven with gold or silver threads, or embossed with figures.
   • A Robe of Tiſſue, ſtiff with golden Wire; / An upper Veſt, once Hellen’s rich Attire; [...]1697, Virgil, “The First Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 228, lines...
3. A sheet of absorbent paper, especially one that is made to be used as tissue paper, toilet paper or a handkerchief.
4. Absorbent paper as material.
5. A group of cells (along with their extracellular matrix if any) that are similar in origin and function together to perform a specific job.
   • What they lack is outermost brain tissue that, at least in humans, prompts awareness and interpretation.2014, Robert K. Bolger, Scott Korb, Gesturing Toward Reality: David Foster Wallace and Philosophy
6. Web; texture; complicated fabrication; connected series.
   • a tissue of forgeries, or of lies

See all 11 meanings of tissue