Alum: Potassium aluminum sulphate, commonly used as a mordant for natural dyes.
Assistant: Substance used in the dyeing (or printing) process to aid the coloration.
Beck: Open topped vessel containing liquid used for treating textile materials, e.g. dyes in solution.
Cochineal: Natural red dye from a South American beetle.
Colorant: A coloring matter, which may be a dye or a pigment.
Deep-dyeing fibres: Fibres modified to dye with a different class of dye from that used for the unmodified fibre. Allows cross dyeing within the same fibre group. Also known as dye-variant fibres.
Dope: Solution of fibre-forming polymer before extrusion through the spinneret.
Dope-dyed: See mass coloration.
Exhaustion: The proportion of a dye or any other substance taken up by a substrate at any stage of a process from the amount originally available.
Fugitive tint: Colorant that is not fast that is applied to textiles to aid identification during handling. It is removed easily at a later stage. Also known as sighting color and tinting color.
Jig: Machine in which fabric is open width is transferred back and forth from one roller to another and passes through a relatively small amount of dye-liquor or other liquid.
Jigger: See jig.
Kermes: Natural red plant dye.
Knit-de-knit: Method of space dyeing where yarn is weft knitted into fabric and printed with diagonal stripes of color. After dye fixation the fabric is unraveled and the yarn wound as usual for processing into cloth.
Level shade: Even coloration over the surface of the textile.
Logwood: Natural black plant dye.
Madder: Natural red plant dye.
Marking-off: Undesirable transfer of color from one colored material to another fabric.
Mass coloration: Method of coloring manmade fibres by putting the colorant into the spinning solution before extrusion so that colored filaments are spun. Fibres colored by this method may be described as color –spun, spun-dyed, dope-dyed, solution-dyed, spun-colored or spun-pigmented.
Mauveine: First synthetic dye discovered in 1856 by William Henry Perkin. Also known as Perkin’s mauve.
Mordant: Chemical compound, usually a metallic salt, which will form a complex link or bridge with a dye and be retained more firmly by a textile than the dye itself. Mordants are commonly used with natural dyes.
Mordant dye: Dye that is fixed with a mordant. Alternative name for chrome dye.
Nip rollers: Pair of rollers between which the textile passes. Often used in wet processes to control the amount of liquor going onto the textile.
Off-shade: Describes a match that is not commercially acceptable.
Package-dyed: Describes textiles that have been dyed on a package, e.g. yarn on perforated cones and cheeses, warp yarn on a perforated warp beam.
Perforated beam: Beam or roller, with holes through which dye-liquor or steam can be passed, onto which the fabric is wound.
Perkin’s mauve: First synthetic dye discovered in 1856 by William Henry Perkin. Also known as mauveine.
Piece: Fabric of commonly accepted length from the loom or knitting machine.
Piece-dyed: Describes fabric which has been dyed at the fabric stage of processing.
Potassium aluminum sulphate: Common mordant used for natural dyes. Also known as alum.
Potassium dichromate: Common mordant used for natural dyes.
Random dyeing: Form of space dyeing where the method ensures that the coloration in the final fabric is random, e.g. injection dyeing.
Reserved: Describes the property of a dye in a particular dyeing system which allows one or more fibres in a multi-fibre textile to remain uncolored.
Saffron: Natural yellow plant dye.
Sighting color: Colorant that is not fast that is applied to textiles to aid identification during handling. It is removed easily at a later stage. Also known as fugitive tint and tinting color.
Solution dyed: See mass coloration.
Space dyeing: Production of random or regular multi-color effects on yarn by applying colorants at intervals along the yarn. Alternative methods of space dyeing include injection dyeing and kint-de-knit.
Spun-colored: See mass coloration
Spun-dyed: See mass coloration.
Spin-pigmented: See mass coloration.
Stannous chloride: Common mordant used with natural dyes.
Substrate: A material to which dyes and chemicals may be applied.
Tie-dyeing: See tie-dye.
Tone-on-tone dyeing: See tone-in-tone dyeing.
Two-tone: See shot or change-ant.
Tyrian purple: Natural purple animal dye, historically the Imperial purple used for togas in the Roman Empire.
Ultra-deep-dye: Describes fibres that have been modified to have a much greater uptake of dye compared with the unmodified fibres.
