1. A fabric for covering floors; chiefly applied to substitutes for carpeting, as oilcloth, linoleum, etc.
1746. Watson, in Phil. Trans., XLIV. 716. A thick Carpet, instead of a Floor-cloth, is liable to prevent the Success of this Experiment, for the same Reason as dry Shoes.
a. 1818. Miss Rose, in G. Rose, Diaries (1860), II. 75. The floor-cloth in the entrance-hall was taken up, and under it, near the door, one of the intercepted letters was found by the housemaid.
1836. Dickens, Sk. Boz, Our Parish, vii. It was a neat, dull little house, on the shady side of the way, with new, narrow floorcloth in the passage, and new narrow stair-carpets up to the first floor.
2. A housemaid’s cloth for washing floors.
1851. [See FILE sb.7]. (In common use in England.)
Hence Floor-cloth, floorcloth v., to cover with floorcloth. Also, Floor-clothed ppl. a.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick., xvi. He found himself in a little floor-clothed room, with a high desk railed off in one corner, behind which sat a lean youth with cunning eyes and a protruding chin, whose performances in capital-text darkened the window. Ibid. (1844), Mart. Chuz., ix. It was floor-clothed all over; and the ceiling, including a great beam in the middle, was papered.
