swatch

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

A swatch is a specific type of sample — always a small piece of fabric used to show colour, pattern, and texture. A sample is the broadest term and can refer to almost anything: a blood sample, a free sample of cheese, or a sample of writing. A specimen is more formal and scientific, usually implying something collected for study or testing (e.g. a geological specimen or a urine specimen). A patch is a piece of material cut or torn from a larger whole, but it is not necessarily intended as a sample — it could be for mending (e.g. a patch on a pair of jeans). If you are buying fabric online, you ask for a swatch; if you are at a doctor's office, the nurse takes a specimen; if your trousers have a hole, you sew on a patch.

Common collocations

Etymology

The word 'swatch' comes from 16th-century Scots and Northern English, where it meant a strip of cut cloth. It is probably related to the Middle English word 'swacchen', meaning to cut a sample or strip. Textile merchants in the 18th and 19th centuries began attaching small cloth samples — swatches — to order books so customers could feel the fabric before buying. The modern meaning as a fabric sample became standard during the Industrial Revolution when the textile trade expanded rapidly across Britain.