Meaning & use
cambric shirt
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountableold-fashioned
A shirt made of cambric, a very fine, thin, closely woven cloth.
Grammar: Countable: you can say a cambric shirt or two cambric shirts.
Patterns
- a cambric shirt
- wear a cambric shirt
- made of cambric
In the old portrait, the merchant is wearing a white cambric shirt with a high collar.
The museum displays a cambric shirt so fine that it looks almost like silk.
She sang the folk song about a cambric shirt that must be washed in a well.
Word forms
| plural | cambric shirts |
|---|
Common combinations
- a fine cambric shirt
- He wore a fine cambric shirt under his wool jacket.
- a white cambric shirt
- The actors were dressed in white cambric shirts for the scene.
- made of cambric
- Her blouse was made of cambric and felt very light.
- wash a cambric shirt
- The song says you must wash a cambric shirt in a dry well.
Synonyms and how they differ
- linen shirt
- A linen shirt is made from flax and is cooler and heavier; cambric is finer and lighter, so it is not a true synonym.
Word family
- cambric noun
- The fine cloth itself, an uncountable noun.
Commonly confused: cambric shirt or cambric?
cambric shirt vs cambric
Cambric is the fabric; a cambric shirt is a shirt made from it. Do not use cambric alone for the shirt.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'cambric shirt' correctly?
Choose one answer.
A cambric shirt is made of fine, thin cloth, so option 0 fits. Thick leather (option 1) is too heavy, option 2 is wrong because cambric is light, not warm, and option 3 is nonsense because a shirt is not for a car.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cambric shirt”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.