antimacassar

plural antimacassars

1. A cover for the back or arms of a chair or sofa.

   The upholstery is of Irish tweed, with antimacassars in Irish linen, and the rugs are hand-woven in Celtic design.

   1951 May, “Notes and News: New Coaches for C.I.E.”, in Railway Magazine, page 348

   3 more examples

   She was particularly fond of animals, and, besides her canary, whose cage hung on a nail in the massive wall of the keep by day, to the great annoyance of prisoners who relished an after-dinner nap, and was shrouded in an antimacassar on the parlour table at night, she kept several piebald mice and a restless revolving squirrel.

   1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC

   […] how could anyone on a three-legged stool under the high top of the sofa sleep? Especially if the fringe of an antimacassar lolled over the top and tickled your neck?

   1942, Emily Carr, “Mrs. Crane”, in The Book of Small

   Around the table in the bay window, the slim, japanned dining chairs. The chesterfield suite, antimacassar-draped.

   1998, Derek Beaven, chapter 9, in Acts of Mutiny, London: Fourth Estate, →ISBN, part 1 (Motion), page 34