45 Common terminologies in the Textile Industry

Have you ever been in a meeting and suddenly someone starts speaking with a lot of terms that you don’t know? It is quite embarrassing to not understand them at the right time.

In this article, we have taken into consideration the most 45 common terminologies used in the textile industry. We want you to shine during your next interview or business meeting.

Common Textile Terms

1. Air-jet spinning: A spinning system in which yarn is made by wrapping fibers around a core stream of fibers with compressed air.
2. Finishing: Any process performed on yarn or fabric after weaving to improve the look, performance, or feel of the finished textile.
3. Cone: A yarn packed in a canonical shape over a disposable paper cone.
4. Air permeability: The ease with which air passes through the material. It is also a measure of the warmness or coolness of a fabric.
5. Gauge: The thread count of a woven fabric.
6. Colorfastness: Ability of a dye to retain its color.
7. Balanced Cloth: A woven fabric with the same size yarn and the same number of threads per inch in both the warp and fill direction.
8. Geotextile: A synthetic permeable textile.
9. Dobby: Attachment on a loom that weaves geometric figures.
10. Basketweave: A type of weave in which two or more warp and weft yarns are woven side to side resembling a basket.
11. Ikat: A style of weaving that uses a tie-dye process on either warp or weft.
12. Beam: A wooden or metal cylinder on which warp yarns are wound.
13. Hand: How a fabric feels to the touch.
14. Bicomponent yarns: Yarns of two generic fibers
15. Rapier loom: Looms in which either a double or single rapier carries filament through the shed.
16. Bi-directional fabric: Fabric having reinforcing fibers in the warp and weft direction.
17. Converter: An organization that sells finished fabrics after buying greige fabrics from the market.
18. Scouring: An operation prior to dyeing to remove the sizing and tint used on the warp yarn in weaving.
19. Bleeding: Loss of color by fabric as a result of improper dyeing or use of poor quality dye. Typically happens while washing.
20. Selvage: An edge produced on woven fabric during manufacturing to prevent it from unraveling.
21. Blends: Combination of two or more types of yarns in a fabric.
22. Swelling: The expansion of a fiber caused by the influence of a chemical, solvent, or agent.
23. Crocking: Rubbing off of dye from the fabric. Either under wet or dry conditions, unlike bleeding.
24. Braid: Three or more yarns are interlaced to form a flat or tubular narrow fabric.
25. Tex: Tex is the weight in grams of one kilometer of yarn.
26. Break factor: It is the measure used for calculating the yarn strength.
27. Yield: Number of finished square yards per pound of fiber or yarn.
28. Broadcloth: A fabric having a width of more than 29 inches.
29. Twist: Number of turns about its axis per unit of length of yarn.
30. Conditioning: A process of allowing textile materials to reach equilibrium with the surrounding atmosphere.
31. Dent: The space between the wires of a reed on a loom.
32. Broken End: A broken warp yarn found in a fabric resulting from slubs, knots, improper shuttle alignment, etc.
33. Creel: A framework arranged to yarns for withdrawing yarns without damage.
34. Throwing: The operation of doubling or manufactured filament yarn.
35. Cabled yarn: A yarn formed by twisting together two or more piled yarns.
36. Strand: A single fiber
37. Calender: Textiles are passed through calender rollers during the finishing process to thin, smooth, or coat a material.
38. Pattern: An arrangement of form or weaving designs.
39. Carbon fiber: 90% more carbonized fiber with a high tensile strength made by heating rayon or polyacrylonitrile fibers or petroleum residues.
40. Cloth: Another term used for fabrics.
41. Mill Run: A textile product that has not been inspected.
42. Coating: A semi-liquid material applied on any side of the fabric to provide certain qualities like water resistance.
43. Color Abrasion: Color changes in localized areas of a garment resulting from differential wear. Example: Knee area of jeans.
44. Crimp: The measurement for the waviness of a fabric.
45. Denier: The gram weight of 9000 meters of yarn.

There are endless terminologies used in the textile industry. But some are better to be known than ignored. If you know any terms that are not mentioned here, please comment below. Do a favor and send this to your friends and help them win the discussions.

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