tabby
noun
[ ˈtabi ]
• a grey or brownish cat mottled or streaked with dark stripes.
• a fabric with a watered pattern, typically silk.
• a plain weave.
• a type of concrete made of lime, shells, gravel, and stones, which dries very hard.
• a small moth with dark wavy markings on the forewings.
tabby
adjective
• (of a cat) grey or brownish in colour and streaked with dark stripes.
• "a young tabby tomcat"
Origin:
late 16th century (denoting a kind of silk taffeta, originally striped, later with a watered finish: see tabby (sense 2 of the noun)): from French tabis, based on Arabic al-‘Attābiyya, the name of the quarter of Baghdad where tabby was manufactured.
