Cal"i*co (?), n.; pl. Calicoes (#). [So called because first imported from Calicut, in the East Indies: cf. F. calicot.]
1.
Plain white cloth made from cotton, but which receives distinctive names according to quality and use, as, super calicoes, shirting calicoes, unbleached calicoes, etc.
[Eng.]
The importation of printed or stained colicoes appears to have been coeval with the establishment of the East India Company.
Beck (Draper's Dict. ).
2.
Cotton cloth printed with a figured pattern.
⇒ In the United States the term calico is applied only to the printed fabric.
Calico bass Zool., an edible, fresh-water fish (Pomoxys sparaides) of the rivers and lake of the Western United States (esp. of the Misissippi valley.), allied to the sunfishes, and so called from its variegated colors; -- called also calicoback, grass bass, strawberry bass, barfish, and bitterhead. -- Calico printing, the art or process of impressing the figured patterns on calico.
© Webster 1913.
Cal"i*co (?), a.
Made of, or having the apperance of, calico; -- often applied to an animal, as a horse or cat, on whose body are large patches of a color strikingly different from its main color.
[Colloq. U. S.]
© Webster 1913.