antimacassar means A cover for the back or arms of a chair or sofa. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why this word is great
ANTIMACASSAR — [Noun] A protective cloth cover for the back or arms of a chair or sofa, originally to guard upholstery from hair oil. Its name is a lexical fortification: From the English prefix anti- ("against") + Macassar, a proprietary name for a type of hair oil fashionable in the 19th century. Unlike a "doily," which serves as a decorative underlay for objects, or a "slipcover," which sheathes an entire piece for renewal, the antimacassar is a localized, pragmatic shield against a specific human residue. It is the starched linen sentinel on a velvet wingback, the crocheted lace barrier on a brocade arm, the faint scent of lavender rising from its cotton weave—a fragile testament to the civilizing impulse that forever wages its quiet war against the body’s inevitable oils and erosions.
noun
- A cover for the back or arms of a chair or sofa.“She was particularly fond of animals, and, besides her canary, whose cage hung on a nail in the massive wall of the keep by day, to the great annoyance of prisoners who relished an after-dinner nap, and was shrouded in an antimacassar on the parlour table at night, she kept several piebald mice and a restless revolving squirrel.”