Other forms: swatches
A swatch is a small patch of colour tried out on the skin or on a wall. A paint swatch, swatch the lipstick, a fabric swatch.
The point is that a colour looks different against a different ground and in different light, so a swatch has to be seen where it will actually live. In cosmetics the word has become a verb, and swatching is a whole genre of review.
1nounswatchA small patch of colour tried out on the skin or a wall.
“She painted a few swatches on the wall before choosing the blue.”
swatch is a sample.
From a northern English dialect word for the counterfoil of a tally, of unknown further origin.
Built from
From earlier Northern England dialectal swache (“the counterfoil or counterstock of a tally”) (1512); further etymology unknown. Cognate with Scots swach, swatch. Compare English swath, swathe. Compare also Old English swæcc (“taste; flavour; odour; fragrance”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA