Beaum. and Fletch., The Little French Lawyer, i. 1.
SUCLÁT, SACKCLOTH, &c., s. Pers. saḳallāṭ, saḳallaṭ, saḳlaṭīn, saḳlāṭūn, applied to certain woollen stuffs, and particularly now to European broadcloth. It is sometimes defined as scarlet broad cloth; but though this colour is frequent, it does not seem to be essential to the name. [Scarlet was the name of a material long before it denoted a colour. In the Liberate Roll of 14 Hen. III. (1230, quoted in N. & Q. 8 ser. i. 129) we read of sanguine scarlet, brown, red, white and scarlet coloris de Marble.] It has, however, been supposed that our word scarlet comes from some form of the present word (see Skeat, s.v. Scarlet).[[248]] But the fact that the Arab. dictionaries give a form saḳirlāṭ must not be trusted to. It is a modern form, probably taken from the European word, [as according to Skeat, the Turkish iskerlat is merely borrowed from the Ital. scarlatto].
The word is found in the medieval literature of Europe in the form siclatoun, a term which has been the subject of controversy both as to etymology and to exact meaning (see Marco Polo, Bk. i. ch. 58, notes). Among the conjectures as to etymology are a derivation from Ar. ṣaḳl, 'polishing' (see [SICLEEGUR]); from Sicily (Ar. Ṣiḳiliya); and from the Lat. cyclas, cycladatus. In the Arabic Vocabulista of the 13th century (Florence, 1871), siḳlaṭūn is translated by ciclas. The conclusion come to in the note on Marco Polo, based, partly but not entirely, on the modern meaning of saḳallāṭ, was that saḳlāṭūn was probably a light woollen texture. But Dozy and De Jong give it as étoffe de soie, brochée d'or, and the passage from Edrisi supports this undoubtedly. To the north of India the name suklāt is given to a stuff imported from the borders of China.
1040.—"The robes were then brought, consisting of valuable frocks of saklátún of various colours...."—Baihaki, in Elliot, ii. 148.
c. 1150.—"Almeria (Almarīa) was a Musulman city at the time of the Moravidae. It was then a place of great industry, and reckoned, among others, 800 silk looms, where they manufactured costly robes, brocades, the stuffs known as Saḳlāṭūn Isfahānī ... and various other silk tissues."—Edrisi (Joubert), ii. 40.
c. 1220.—"Tabrīz. The chief city of Azarbaijān.... They make there the stuffs called 'attābī (see [TABBY]), Siḳlāṭūn, Khiṭābī, fine satins and other textures which are exported everywhere."—Yāḳūt, in Barbier de Meynard, i. 133.
c. 1370?—
"His heer, his berd, was lyk saffroun
That to his girdel raughte adoun
Hise shoos of Cordewane,