tissue

Thin, woven, gauzelike fabric.

Noun

  1. Thin, woven, gauzelike fabric.
    • Madame Legarde, the "glass of fashion and the nurse of form," (alias the most fashionable of milliners,) has comfortably assured me, "that my figure has great merit, and only requires cultivation:" this is to be done by...
    • The face which emerged was not reassuring. It was blunt and grey, the nose springing thick and flat from high on the frontal bone of the forehead, whilst his eyes were narrow slits of dark in a tight bandage of tissue....
  2. A fine transparent silk material, used for veils, etc.; specifically, cloth interwoven with gold or silver threads, or embossed with figures.
    • A Robe of Tiſſue, ſtiff with golden Wire; / An upper Veſt, once Hellen’s rich Attire; [...] - 1697, Virgil, “The First Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals,...
    • In their glittering tissues bear emblazed / Holy memorials. - 1667, John Milton, “Book V”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd...
    • Corinius went on the right, wearing a rich cloak of sky-blue tissue over his shining armour. - 1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 20:
  3. A sheet of absorbent paper, especially one that is made to be used as tissue paper, toilet paper or a handkerchief.
  4. Absorbent paper as material.
  5. A group of cells (along with their extracellular matrix if any) that are similar in origin and function together to perform a specific job.
    • What they lack is outermost brain tissue that, at least in humans, prompts awareness and interpretation. - 2014, Robert K. Bolger, Scott Korb, Gesturing Toward Reality: David Foster Wallace and Philosophy:
  6. Web; texture; complicated fabrication; connected series.
    • a tissue of forgeries, or of lies
    • unwilling to leave the dry bones of Agnosticism wholly unclothed with any living tissue of religious emotion - 1888, A. J. Balfour, The Religion of Humanity:
  7. The scratch sheet or racing form.
    • Pricing the first show is a matter of the bookmaker's individual judgment, relying upon advice from all quarters, particularly the tissue; but very soon in the betting exchanges it becomes clear that the sole criterion...
  8. A cigarette paper.

Origin

From Middle English tissu, from Old French tissu (“woven”), past participle of tistre (“to weave”), from Latin texō (“to weave”).

Forms

tissues

Derived

adipose tissue antitissue bathroom tissue bath tissue biotissue bone tissue cloth of tissue conjunctive tissue connective tissue deep tissue epithelial tissue facial tissue granulation tissue ground tissue intertissue intratissue Japanese tissue living tissue macrotissue mesenchymal tissue microtissue mixed connective tissue disease multitissue neotissue

Verb

  1. To form tissue of; to interweave.
    • The Chariot was couered with Cloth of Gold tiſſued vpon blew. - 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “New Atlantis. A Worke Vnfinished.”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London:...
  2. To have the contents of an injection or intravenous drip leak into the tissue as a result of a ruptured or punctured vein.

Forms

tissues tissuing tissued