holland

What it means

1. countablehistoricaluncountableA type of linen cloth, originally from Holland.

   His apartments were blank. Brown hollands covered his library-table

   1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 29, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC

   1 more example

   I am convinced that many if not all the Quality in France wore shirts of the finest holand, for tho' I never saw of them strip I have seen what is an equivalent proof, I have seen on the Bulwarks of Paris above twenty entire shirts hanging to dry that the best Gentlemen in England might wear without disparagement.

   1768, Joshua Reynolds, edited by John Ingamells and John Edgcumbe, The Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Yale, published 2000, page 23

In a sentence

I am convinced that many if not all the Quality in France wore shirts of the finest holand, for tho' I never saw of them strip I have seen what is an equivalent proof, I have seen on the Bulwarks of Paris above twenty entire shirts hanging to dry that the best Gentlemen in England might wear without disparagement.

1768, Joshua Reynolds, edited by John Ingamells and John Edgcumbe, The Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Yale, published 2000, page 23

Where it comes from

1. Old Dutchholt lant“wood land”
2. Englishholland

After Holland, where it originally came from. From Old Dutch holt lant (“wood land”).