tapestry: [15] The ultimate source of tapestry is Greek tápēs ‘tapestry, woven carpet’. Its diminutive from tapētion was borrowed via late Latin tapētium into Old French as tapis ‘carpet’. From this was derived the verb tapisser ‘cover with a carpet’, and this in turn formed the basis of a noun tapisserie ‘carpets, woven material’. English took it over and altered it to tapestry.
tapestry (n.)
late 14c., tapiestre, with unetymological -t-, from Old French tapisserie "tapestry" (14c.), from tapisser "to cover with heavy fabric," from tapis "heavy fabric, carpet," from tapiz "carpet, floor covering" (12c.), from Vulgar Latin *tappetium, from Byzantine Greek tapetion, from classical Greek, diminutive of tapes (genitive tapetos) "heavy fabric, carpet, rug," from an Iranian source (compare Persian taftan "to turn, twist"), from PIE *temp- "to stretch." The figurative use is first recorded 1580s.
