Rug Glossary

In this post, you can find a brief glossary about rugs. These words are most used terms during classifing and describing a rug;

ABRASH Variation and striation of colors throughout the rug.

ANTIQUE Rugs over 60 years old.

BORDER A design that surrounds the field in an Oriental rug

CAUCASIAN Rugs were mainly woven in Azerbaijan, which is part of the Caucasus region.

CHEMICAL DYES Modern synthetic dyes used in rugs woven after 1935.

CHROME DYED Modern synthetic dyes.

COMBING Process for preparing wool’s in the same direction, before they are spun.

DOBAG A Turkish Acronym meaning Natural Dye Research and Development Project. In the late 1970s the government of Turkey began this program to improve the quality and profitability of the rug industry. The program reintroduced the use of natural dyes and traditional weaving methods.

FIELD The part of the rug lying between the border.

FLAT-WEAVE Describes a rug that has a flat pile which includes Dhurrie, Kilim and Soumak.

FRINGE Extension of the warp threads on two opposite sides of a rug.

INDIGO Any of various shrubs or herbs of the genus Indigofera in the pea family, having odd-pinnate leaves and usually red or purple flowers in axillary racemes. A blue dye obtained from these plants or produced synthetically.

KILIM A flat rug with no pile.

KNOT The process of wrapping yarn around the warps to form a pile is known as knotting. There are two basic types of knot commonly used in areas where rugs are woven. The symmetrical knot (also referred to as the Turkish knot or Gördes knot) is used in Turkey, the Caucasus, Northwestern Iran, and by some Turkmen groups. The asymmetrical knot (also referred as the Persian or Senneh knot) is used in most of Iran, in the majority of Turkmen rugs, and in China.

KNOT COUNT The number of knots per square inch or square decimeter describes the fineness of the rug. The total is obtained my multiplying the vertical by the horizontal knot count.

KNOTS PER SQUARE INCH Number of knots per square inch rates the knot quality.

LAYOUT The overall arrangement of motifs or objects woven into a rug.

LOOM Normally a wood structure that the carpet is woven on.

MIHRAB A niche design in the middle of a Muslim prayer rug, pointed toward Mecca during worship.

NATURAL DYES See vegetable dyes.

NAP Face of the rug where the knot ends are cut, normally made of wool or silk.

PILE The cut ends of the pile knots, which Project from the rug. Rugs without pile are known as the flat waves.

PLY The manner in which single strands of yarn are twisted together to form a thicker, stronger yarn. The ply is also described as either S or Z, but with rare exceptions the ply is in the opposite direction from the spin.

RE-FRINGE Repair fringe of rug using the selvedge or part of the rug.

RUNNER A very long and narrow rectangular carpet. They are used as coverings for hallways, stairways, and entrances. For this reason, they are also called Corridor rugs.

SAFFRON A corm-producing plant (Crocus sativus) native to the Old World, having purple or white flowers with orange stigmas

SELVAGE A woven edge finish formed either from the wefts as they turn back to recross the rug, or from additional yarns incorporated to protect the expose wefts.

SENNEH KNOT Persian knot

SIDING Edging on non-fringed sides of a rug.

SILK A fine lustrous fiber composed mainly of fibroin and produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons, especially the strong, elastic, fibrous secretion of silkworms used to make thread and fabric.

SOUMAK A flat-piled rug using a special weaving technique known as weft wrapping.

SPIN The manner in which fibers are twisted together to form a yarn. Yarns may be spun either clockwise or counter-clockwise, and they may be described as Z- or S- spun, depending upon whether the fibers are inclined in the direction of the diagonal stroke of the S or the Z.

VEGETABLE DYES Dyes derived from insects or from the earth, which includes madder root, indigo, milkweed, pomegranate, osage, cutch and cochineal.

WARP The threads that run from one end to the loom to the other, usually in the long dimension of the fabric, around which the pile knots are tied. The warps are held taut by the beams of the loom and, when cut, the loose warp ends from the fringe.

WEFT The threads that run across the width of the loom, perpendicular to the warps, with which they interlace. The weft is not attached directly to the loom. Each passage of the weft is referred to as a “shoot,” and there may be a number of shoots after each row of knots. The weft usually runs across short dimension of the fabric.

•