[Name of the capital of Belgium, used attrib. to designate things connected, in their origin or manufacture, with that city.]

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  1.  Short for ‘Brussels carpet.’

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a. 1845.  Hood, Domestic Asides, iii. What boots for my new Brussels!

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  2.  Attrib. or Comb., as Brussels carpet, a kind of carpet having a back of stout linen thread and an upper surface of wool (see quot. 1875); Brussels lace, a costly kind of pillow-lace made in Brussels and its neighborhood, noted for the thickness and evenness of its texture, and the delicate accuracy of its forms; Brussels sprout (almost always pl.), the bud-bearing Cabbage (Brassica oleracea gemmifera), a variety producing buds like small cabbages in the axils of its leaves.

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1831.  Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. iv. A whole immensity of *Brussels carpet, and pier-glasses.

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1875.  Ure, Dict. Arts, I. 732. In the Brussels carpets the worsted yarn raised to form the pile … is not cut. In the imperial Brussels the figure is raised above the ground, and its pile is cut, but the ground is uncut.

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1748.  Richardson, Clarissa, iii. III. 28. Her head dress was a *Brussels lace mob.

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1823.  Byron, Juan, XIV. xlvii. Sympathy … robes sweet friendship in a Brussels lace.

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1796.  C. Marshall, Garden., xv. (1813), 224. *Brussels sprouts are winter greens growing much like boorcole.

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1855.  Delamer, Kitch. Gard., 57. And from the bud at the root of the footstalk of each, will appear a miniature cabbage, which is the Brussels sprout.

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