Wrinkle-free means made of cloth that refuses to crease. A wrinkle-free shirt, wrinkle-free travel trousers, stays wrinkle-free.
It is a selling word, and the effect comes from the weave or a chemical finish rather than from care. Crease-resistant is the more honest term, since nothing stays perfectly wrinkle-free.
1adjectivewrinkle-freeMade of cloth that refuses to crease.
“He packs two wrinkle-free shirts and nothing that needs an iron.”
wrinkle-free is a quality.
Middle English
wrinkle
English
wrinkle
English, today
wrinkle-free
Built from
From wrinkle + -free. wrinkle comes from Middle English wrinkle, wrynkel (“crease, fold, wrinkle”), from the verb (see below). Cognate with Dutch wrinkel (“wrinkle, crease”). Compare also Middle English runkel (“wrinkle”), from Old Norse hrukka (“wrinkle”), from Proto-Germanic hrunkwǭ (“wrinkle, crease”), whence also French fronce (“crooked smile, scowl, frown”), German Runzel (“wrinkle”), Danish rynke (“wrinkle”), Swedish rynka and rynkla (“wrinkle”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA