'Calico' definitions:

Definition of 'calico'

adjective

Made of calico or resembling calico in being patterned; "calico dresses"; "a calico cat"

adjective

Having sections or patches colored differently and usually brightly; "a jester dressed in motley"; "the painted desert"; "a particolored dress"; "a piebald horse"; "pied daisies" [syn: motley, calico, multicolor, multi-color, multicolour, multi-colour, multicolored, multi- colored, multicoloured, multi-coloured, painted, particolored, particoloured, piebald, pied, varicolored, varicoloured]

noun

Coarse cloth with a bright print

From: GCIDE

Calico \Cal"i*co\, n.; pl. Calicoes. [So called because first imported from Calicut, in the East Indies: cf. F. calicot.]
1. Plain white cloth made from cotton, but which receives distinctive names according to quality and use, as, super calicoes, shirting calicoes, unbleached calicoes, etc. [Eng.] [1913 Webster]
The importation of printed or stained colicoes appears to have been coeval with the establishment of the East India Company. --Beck (Draper's Dict. ). [1913 Webster]
2. Cotton cloth printed with a figured pattern. [1913 Webster]
Note: In the United States the term calico is applied only to the printed fabric. [1913 Webster]
Calico bass (Zool.), an edible, fresh-water fish ({Pomoxys sparaides}) of the rivers and lake of the Western United States (esp. of the Misissippi valley.), allied to the sunfishes, and so called from its variegated colors; -- called also calicoback, grass bass, strawberry bass, barfish, and bitterhead.
Calico printing, the art or process of impressing the figured patterns on calico. [1913 Webster]

From: GCIDE

Calico \Cal"i*co\, a. Made of, or having the appearance of, calico; -- often applied to an animal, as a horse or cat, on whose body are large patches of a color strikingly different from its main color. [Colloq. U. S.] [1913 Webster]