The word "textile" was originally used to define a woven fabric and the processes invo1ved in 
weaving. Over the years the term has taken on broad connotations, including the following: (1) 
staple filaments and fibers for use in yarns or preparation of woven, knitted, tufted or 
nonwoven fabrics, (2) yarns made from natural or man-made fibers, (3) fabrics and other 
products made from fibers or from yarns, and (4) apparel or other articles fabricated from the 
above which retain the flexibility and drape of the original fabrics. This broad definition will 
generally cover all of the products produced by the textile industry intended for intermediate 
structures or final products.
Textile fabrics are planar structures produced by interlacing or entangling yarns or fibers in 
some manner. In turn, textile yarns are continuous strands made up of textile fibers, the basic 
physical structures or elements which make up textile products. Each individual fiber is made 
up of millions of individual long molecular chains of discrete chemical structure. The 
arrangement and orientation of these molecules within the individual fiber, as well as the gross 
cross section and shape of the fiber (morphology), will affect fiber properties, but by far the 
molecular structure of the long molecular chains which make up the fiber will determine its 
basic physical and chemical nature. Usually, the polymeric molecular chains found in fibers 
have a definite chemical sequence which repeats itself along the length of the molecule. The 
total number of units which repeat themselves in a chain (n) varies from a few units to several 
hundred and is referred to as the degree of polymerization (DP) for molecules within that fiber.