plush

UK/plʌʃ/US/plʌʃ/

adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,329 of 15,258neutral

Plush means thick, soft and expensive-feeling. A plush carpet, a plush hotel, plush surroundings.

It began as a fabric — a long-piled velvet — and became an adjective for anything luxurious, because only the rich could afford the cloth. A plush toy is one covered in that fabric, and plushie is the collector's word for such a toy.

Definitions of plush

1adjectiveplushThick, soft and expensive-feeling.B2+
“The hotel lobby had plush velvet sofas and thick carpets.”

plush is a quality.

Where it comes from

French peluche means fluff or shag, from a Latin root meaning hair. The adjective grew from the costly fabric.

French
peluche — fluff, plush
English, today
plush

From French peluche (“fluff, plush”). The fact that historically (in past centuries) plush upholstery was so expensive as to be socially exclusive undoubtedly connects the senses of "luxurious" and "soft".

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Texture & Touch

Practise this word

plush in the wild

Velour, occasionally velours, is a plush, knitted fabric or textile similar to velvet or velveteen.
Velour
Beginning in the 1990s, electronic plush toys like Tickle Me Elmo and Furby became fads.
Stuffed toy
In the 2020s, plush toys like Squishmallows, Jellycat and Labubu became fads after going viral on social media.
Stuffed toy
Artists use a variety of materials, such as ABS plastic, vinyl, wood, metal, latex, plush, and resin.
Art toy
The plush-crested jay (Cyanocorax chrysops) is a jay of the family Corvidae (which includes the crows and their many allies).
Plush-crested jay

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

← Vocabulary