carpet

Pluralcarpets

Formscarpets, carpeting, carpeted

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A thick fabric laid down to cover an entire floor.

   The hallway carpet was worn thin after years of foot traffic.

   We chose a deep green carpet for the living room.

   Note

   A word that traveled far before it reached the floor. It came through Old French and Medieval Latin or Italian from Middle Armenian karpet, and Florentine traders brought it west in the 13th century from the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. As a material it is uncountable. As a single piece it counts, and a maker's name can stand before it, as in the "excellent Axminster carpet" of Mrs. Belloc Lowndes's The Lodger (1913).

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To cover something almost entirely, as a carpet does; to blanket it.

   Bluebells carpet the woodland floor in spring.

   Ash carpeted the rooftops after the volcano erupted.

   Similarblanket, cover, coat

   Note

   Here nothing is laid by hand; the covering simply happens. The verb is most at home in the passive with with, like the village green "carpeted with daffodils" in the AA Book of British Villages (1980). In the active voice, the covering itself becomes the subject: popcorn and candy wrappers carpeted the cinema floor. It is the verb partner of the figurative "carpet of" noun.

3. 3
   nounfigurativelycountable or uncountable

   A surface or layer that resembles a floor covering or serves the same function, such as a spread of flowers or leaves.

   A carpet of fallen petals softened the courtyard stones.

   From the plane, the forest looked like a green carpet stretching to the horizon.

   Similarblanket, layer, covering, mat

   Note

   Writers have been laying carpets outdoors for centuries. Shakespeare has "the grassy carpet of this plain" in 1595, and Loren Long and Phil Bildner's Magic in the Outfield (2009) has a "carpet of green" sloping toward the trees. The usual frame is a carpet of plus whatever covers the ground: grass, petals, leaves. An adjective in front, as in grassy carpet, does the same work.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To lay carpet in a room or area, or to have carpet installed there.

   The landlord agreed to carpet the apartment before the new tenants arrived.

   They carpeted the office in a hard-wearing gray weave.

   Note

   The verb takes the room as its object: you carpet the hallway, the office or the whole house. When the point is to hide what was there before, English adds over, as in "they carpeted over the blackened hardwood flooring." The -ing form naturally describes the job in progress, as when builders are carpeting in the living room.

5. 5
   verbUKtransitive

   To scold or reprimand someone sharply, especially a subordinate.

   The manager will carpet anyone who breaks the rules.

   He was carpeted by the head teacher for the prank.

   Similarreprimand, scold, rebuke, chastise, berate

   Oppositepraise, commend

   Note

   A British usage for being called to account, and it is most common in the passive. Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game (1990) has a colonel "so recently carpeted by St Petersburg." Watch for the overlap with the flooring verb, which shares every form. An office can be carpeted by builders, but a manager carpeted by the board has been reprimanded.

6. 6
   nounslangvulgarusually singular

   A vulgar slang term for a woman's pubic hair.

   The comedian's tired gag about a redhead's carpet drew groans.

   He muttered something vulgar about her carpet and got slapped.

   Similarbush

   Note

   Crude slang that borrows the covering image behind the figurative "surface" meaning. It is vulgar and offensive in polite or mixed company, and it is best recognized rather than used. In the wrong setting, a remark about someone's carpet reads as both sexual and insulting, however innocent the speaker meant it to be.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   Any of various moths of the geometrid subfamily Larentiinae, typically having intricately patterned, banded wings.

   A carpet settled on the lit window, its wings marked with delicate dark bands.

   Moth surveys in the valley recorded several carpets among the night catch.

   Note

   This is a common name, not a description. Many geometrid moths of the subfamily Larentiinae are called carpets because the banded patterning of their forewings recalls a woven design. Like other geometrids, many have larvae that are loopers, or inchworms. In a moth list the word counts like any creature's name, as in one carpet or several carpets, and it never means the floor covering.

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