zylon

alternative Zylon

1. uncountableA synthetic polymer material, a range of thermoset liquid-crystalline polyoxazole developed in the 1980s.

   They wore Zylon soft body armor and load-bearing vests accessorized with baton and knife holders […]

   1999, Tom Clancy, Martin Greenberg, chapter 20, in Shadow Watch,, New York: Berkley Books, page 314

2. uncountableAn earlier synthetic material.

   I scream, extracting from my closet the zylon jacket I wear only with my collar up (a style she abhors as much as the filthy garment itself).

   1969, Philip Roth, “The Jewish Blues”, in Portnoy’s Complaint, New York: Vintage, published 1994, page 41

   1 more example

   Like many imaginative men, Alexandre felt that he was not made for the century in which he lived, this epoch of appalling tedium all too little relieved by gadgets, by nickel, aluminum, plastic, celluloid, Bakelite, nylon, zylon.

   1955, Gabrielle Roy, chapter 1, in Harry Binsse, transl., The Cashier, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, page 9

1. uncountableAlternative letter-case form of zylon.

   Zylon has a higher tensile strength even than Kevlar does, though it has some limitations that make Kevlar more common. Zylon, like Kevlar, has an unusually complex structure to its repeating polymer unit.

   2014, Theodore Gray, photography by Nick Mann, Molecules: The Elements and the Architecture of Everything, 2018 Paperback Edition, page 113