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Upon visiting the city of Damascus in 1867, Mark Twain wrote that “To Damascus, years are only moments, decades are only flitting trifles of time. She measures time not by days and months and years, but by the empires she has seen rise and prosper and crumble to ruin. She is a type of immortality.” Indeed, the city’s Arabic name comes from Dimašqa, a word so ancient that it suggests the origins of the city predate recorded history. The Medieval Latin name for the fabric famously associated with the “pearl of the East,” damascus, first entered Middle English as damaske in the 1300s and was later shortened to damask. That term has also been used in the intervening centuries for a type of steel, though neither the fabric nor the steel likely originated there.
Examples of damask in a Sentence
Angela Velasquez, Sourcing Journal, 9 July 2025
Denim is developed and made in Japan, while the damask is made by Britain’s Humphries Weaving, which specializes in historical reproductions for silk wall interiors.
—Samantha Conti, Footwear News, 3 July 2025
Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 8 Jan. 2018
See All Example Sentences for damask
Cite this Entry
“Damask.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/damask. Accessed 18 Jul. 2025.
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