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buck·ram

(bŭkrəm)

1. A coarse cotton or linen fabric heavily sized with glue, used for stiffening garments and in bookbinding.

2. Archaic Rigid formality.

adj.

Resembling or suggesting buckram, as in stiffness or formality: "a wondrous buckram style" (Thomas Carlyle).

tr.v. buck·ramed, buck·ram·ing, buck·rams

To stiffen with or as if with buckram.

[Middle English bukeram, fine linen, from Old French boquerant and from Old Italian bucherame, both after Bukhara (Bukhoro), from which fine linen was once imported.]

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

Indo-European Roots

Semitic Roots

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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