Fromage à la pie ou Stilton,
Cidre ou pale-ale de Burton,
Vin de brie, ou branne-mouton."
Th. Gautier à Ch. Garnier.
PALEMPORE, s. A kind of chintz bed-cover, sometimes made of beautiful patterns, formerly made at various places in India, especially at Sadras and Masulipatam, the importation of which into Europe has become quite obsolete, but under the greater appreciation of Indian manufactures has recently shown some tendency to revive. The etymology is not quite certain,—we know no place of the name likely to have been the eponymic,—and possibly it is a corruption of a hybrid (Hind. and Pers.) palang-posh, 'a bed-cover,' which occurs below, and which may have been perverted through the existence of [Salempore] as a kind of stuff. The probability that the word originated in a perversion of palang-posh, is strengthened by the following entry in Bluteau's Dict. (Suppt. 1727.)
"Chaudus or Chaudeus são huns panos grandes, que servem para cobrir camas e outras cousas. São pintados de cores muy vistosas, e alguns mais finos, a que chamão palangapuzes. Fabricão-se de algodão em Bengala e Choromandel,"—i.e. "Chaudus ou Chaudeus" (this I cannot identify, perhaps the same as Choutar among [Piece-goods]) "are a kind of large cloths serving to cover beds and other things. They are painted with gay colours, and there are some of a finer description which are called palangposhes," &c.
[For the mode of manufacture at Masulipatam, see Journ. Ind. Art. iii. 14. Mr. Pringle (Madras Selections, 4th ser. p. 71, and Diary Ft. St. Geo. 1st ser. iii. 173) has questioned this derivation. The word may have been taken from the State and town of Pālanpur in Guzerat, which seems to have been an emporium for the manufactures of N. India, which was long noted for chintz of this kind.]
1648.—"Int Governe van Raga mandraga ... werden veel ... Salamporij ... gemaeckt."—Van den Broecke, 87.
1673.—"Staple commodities (at Masulipatam) are calicuts white and painted, Palempores, Carpets."—Fryer, 34.
1813.—