Also flox-, flosh-silk. [f. FLOSS2, after F. soie floche.] a. The rough silk broken off in the winding of the cocoons. b. This rough silk carded like cotton or wool and used chiefly in the manufacture of common silk fabrics. c. Untwisted filaments of silk used in embroidery and crewel-work.
1759. Pullein, in Phil. Trans., LI. 55. It was covered with some floss-silk, by which it was connected with the outer coat, being of the same colour.
1820. Scott, Ivanhoe, xiii. The seal, placed so as to secure the flox-silk with which the billet was surrounded, and which bore the impression of three fleurs-de-lis.
a. 1846. Landor, Imag. Conv., Wks. 1846, II. 53/1. The truckle bed of Valour and Freedom is not wadded with flosh-silk: there are gnarls without and knots within.
1863. Ouida, Held in Bondage, I. viii. 169. Will you be kind enough to hold this skein of floss silk for me?
1884. J. Payne, Tales fr. Arabic, I. 17. Then the rest of the women of the palace came all to him and lifted him into a sitting posture, when he found himself upon a couch, stuffed all with floss-silk, and raised a cubit’s height from the ground.
attrib. 1847. Alb. Smith, Chr. Tadpole, v. (1879), 50. Pulling out a bright blue stock, worked with floss silk sunflowers.
