Cal·i·co n.; pl. Calicoes
 1. Plain white cloth made from cotton, but which receives distinctive names according to quality and use, as, super calicoes, shirting calicoes, unbleached calicoes, etc. [Eng.]
    The importation of printed or stained colicoes appears to have been coeval with the establishment of the East India Company.   --Beck (Draper's Dict. ).
 2. Cotton cloth printed with a figured pattern.
 Note: ☞ In the United States the term calico is applied only to the printed fabric.
 Calico bass Zool., an edible, fresh-water fish (Pomoxys sparaides) of the rivers and lake of the Western United States (esp. of the Misissippi valley.), allied to the sunfishes, and so called from its variegated colors; -- called also calicoback, grass bass, strawberry bass, barfish, and bitterhead.
 Calico printing, the art or process of impressing the figured patterns on calico.


 calicoes
      See calico


 calico
      adj 1: made of calico or resembling calico in being patterned;
             "calico dresses"; "a calico cat"
      2: having sections or patches colored differently and usually
         brightly; "a jester dressed in motley"; "the painted
         desert"; "a particolored dress"; "a piebald horse"; "pied
         daisies" [syn: motley, multicolor, multicolour, multicolored,
          multicoloured, painted, particolored, particoloured,
          piebald, pied, varicolored, varicoloured]
      n : coarse cloth with a bright print
      [also: calicoes (pl)]