[The name of a town in Worcestershire.]
1. attrib. Of or pertaining to Kidderminster; spec. the distinctive name of a kind of carpet, originally manufactured there, in which the pattern is formed by the intersection of two cloths of different colors: also called two-ply and ingrain carpet.
1670–1. Act 22 & 23 Chas. II., c. 8. Preamble, Abuses … in the makeing of Stuffes called Kidderminster Stuffes.
1685. Reflect. Baxter, 25. When the Writings of these excel those of R. B. as much as the richest Arras, the meanest Kedderminster-Stuff.
1832. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 7), VI. 173/1. Double or Kidderminster carpeting is composed of two plies of cloth. Ibid., 174/1. Two-ply Kidderminster Carpet Loom.
1836. Penny Cycl., VI. 314/1. Kidderminster or Scotch carpets, or, as the Americans more descriptively term them, ingrain carpets, are wholly of worsted or woollen.
2. absol. = Kidderminster carpet or carpeting. Also attrib.
1836. Penny Cycl., VI. 314/2. In Kidderminsters the shoot forms by far the greatest portion of what is visible.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 263. Figured Venetian carpets are woven in the two-ply Kidderminster looms.
1892. ‘L. T. Meade,’ Medicine Lady, viii. 68. A carpet made of faded Kidderminster covered the floor.
Hence Kidderminstered a., carpeted with a Kidderminster.
1852. M. W. Savage, R. Medlicott, III. VIII. i. 5 (D.). The tradesman’s contracted and Kidderminstered parlour.
