skip to main content

SILKNOW

Content language

Fibre > Natural fibre > Animal fibre > Silk > Silk bombyx mori
PREFERRED TERM
Silk bombyx mori  
DEFINITION
  • n. A term from the Old English "sioloc" "seoloc" and Latin "sēricus" "Sēres". It refers to the strong, soft, lustrous fibre or fibroin (continuous protein filament) produced or secreted by the larvae of certain bombycine moths, specially moth caterpillars, the Bombyx mori (known as the silkworm) which feed upn mulberry leaves when construction their cocoons. The silk is secreted as a viscous fluid from two glands in the lateral part of the body and it joins the secretion of sericin from two other glands that quickly hardens and cements the two filaments together. The silkworm winds this thread about itself to form a protective cocoon in which it passes the pupal stage. Silk has been an early trade item (from 2nd and 1st century B.C.) due to its many desirable qualities. It was a primary impetus for the establishment of lon-distance overland trade routes, known as the Silk Road.
BROADER CONCEPT
RELATED CONCEPTS
BIBLIOGRAPHIC CITATION
  • CIETA. Burnham, Dorothy. Warp and Weft. A Textile Terminology. Royal Ontario Museum, 1980. Simpson, John; Weiner, Edmund (eds). The Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford : Clarendon Press ; Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1989. [www.oed.com] Tortora, Phyllis, y Ingrid Johnson. The Fairchild Books Dictionary of Textiles, 2015. Phipps, Elena. Looking at Textiles. A guide to technical terms. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2011.
IN OTHER LANGUAGES
Soie du Bombyx du mûrier

French

Seta

Italian

Seda bombyx mori

Spanish

URI
http://data.silknow.org/vocabulary/368
Download this concept:
CLOSELY MATCHING CONCEPTS
EXACTLY MATCHING CONCEPTS
www.wikidata.org
RELATED MATCHING CONCEPTS
www.wikidata.org
We're open to collaboration, feel free to send us your suggestions to info@silknow.eu