Mortlake
(ˈmɔːtleɪk)
Also 7 Mortclake, Mortelack, 7–8 Moreclack.
1. The name of the Surrey town Mortlake used attrib. in Mortlake hangings, Mortlake tapestry, a kind of tapestry woven there in the reigns of James I and Charles I. Obs. exc. Hist.
| [1639 Mayne City Match ii. iii, Why Lady doe you think me Wrought in a Loome, some Dutch peece weavd at Mooreclack?] 1682 Oldham Imit. 3rd Sat. Juvenal Wks. iii. (1686) 198 A rich Suit of Moreclack-Tapestry. 1690 Evelyn Mundus Muliebris 8 With Moreclack Tapistry, Damask Bed. 1691 Lond. Gaz. No. 2655/4 Two pieces of Mortelack Hangings of Boys and Landskips. 1888 Encycl. Brit. XXIII. 213/1 Most of the Mortlake tapestry has distinct marks, such as the shield of St. George with F. C. (F. Crane). |
2. (Written mortlake, mort-lake.) = ox-bow lake.
| 1902 Ld. Avebury Scenery Eng. ix. 303 The loop often remains as a dead river-channel or ‘Mortlake’. Such loop-lakes are known in America by the special name of ‘Ox⁓bows’. 1937 [see cut-off n. 2]. 1957 G. E. Hutchinson Treat. Limnol. I. i. 123 The term mortlake, presumably derived from the place name, has been used in some English works as the equivalent of bras mort or Altwasser. 1962 Read & Watson Introd. Geol. iv. 172 When the loop of the meander becomes large it is liable to be cut-off across its neck, leaving an abandoned separated portion which may remain as an oxbow-lake or mort-lake. 1968 Geogr. Abstr. B. 112 The fish fauna of various rivers, peat hags and mortlakes was examined. |