[Name of the capital of Belgium, used attrib. to designate things connected, in their origin or manufacture, with that city.]
1. Short for Brussels carpet.
a. 1845. Hood, Domestic Asides, iii. What boots for my new Brussels!
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.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. iv. A whole immensity of *Brussels carpet, and pier-glasses.
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.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa, iii. III. 28. Her head dress was a *Brussels lace mob.
1823. Byron, Juan, XIV. xlvii. Sympathy robes sweet friendship in a Brussels lace.
1796. C. Marshall, Garden., xv. (1813), 224. *Brussels sprouts are winter greens growing much like boorcole.
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.