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From Calicut, in India, from where the cloth was originally exported, from Malayalamകോഴിക്കോട്(kōḻikkōṭŭ, “Kozhikode”), from കോഴി(kōḻi, “palace”) + കോട്(kōṭŭ, “fortified palace”), with ‘y’ replaced by interchangeable ‘zh’.
(textiles) A kind of rough cloth made from unbleached and not fully processed cotton, often printed with a bright pattern.
1832, Michael Faraday, “Experimental Researches in Electricity”, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, volume 122, →DOI, →JSTOR, page 126:
This helix was covered with calico, and then a second wire applied in the same manner.
2017 June 30, Ruth La Ferla, “In ‘The Beguiled,’ Pretty Confections Whipped Up to Seduce”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
Trussed in corsets, jawbone-high collars and calicos that had seen better days, they have little enough to work with, their attempts at coquetry further constrained by their rigid mores of the day.