We were visiting a friend in the coffeeshop where they worked. Some days she’d be brewing the coffee. Other days she’d be serving cakes from ‘Terciopelo’, a bakery in the back.
‘Terciopelo’, I thought to myself. Third… hair…?
Kass told me it meant ‘velvet’, in this context referring to the luxurious velvety textures and flavours of the pastries.
But like, why ‘third hair’?
Down the rabbit hole I went. Turns out, making velvet (as in, the fabric) involves weaving a single crosswise thread (a ‘woof’) through two lengthwise threads (‘warps’).
In Spanish, the ‘woof’ used to make velvet is called ‘el primer hilo’, literally meaning ‘the first thread’ (or ‘hair’), and the first warp is called ‘el segundo hilo’ — ‘the second thread’.
The softness of velvet comes from its fur-like ‘pile’: that’s the side of a piece of fabric where the strands stick out. In Spanish, this ‘third thread’ is called ‘el tercer pelo’.
As a compound noun, this becomes ‘terciopelo’.
The banana bread was delicious, by the way.