Skip to content

tela

fabric, cloth

noun TEH-lah Rare

Origin: Latin tela 'web, cloth'

Also means

canvas (art)

Usage Note

Tela is the general word for woven fabric or cloth. In art, tela and lienzo both mean canvas, but lienzo is more specific to the stretched painting surface. The colloquial phrase ¡tela marinera! (or simply ¡tela!) in Spain means 'wow, that's a lot' or 'that's quite something', expressing surprise.

Examples

"Compró una tela de algodón azul."

Natural Translation

She bought a blue cotton cloth.

Free starter pack

Building your Spanish vocabulary?

Get the 100 most common Spanish words as a free PDF — one email, no spam.

Explore Spanish by topic