I wonder what "brasses in the pavement" are:
"As the bell was yet ringing and the great people were not yet come, I had leisure to glance over the church, which smelt as earthy as a grave, and to think what a shady, ancient, solemn little church it was. The windows, heavily shaded by trees, admitted a subdued light that made the faces around me pale, and darkened the old brasses in the pavement, and the time and damp-worn monuments, and rendered the sunshine in the little porch, where a monotonous ringer was working at the bell, inestimably bright."

one look got me here:

http://12.1911encyclopedia.org/B/BR/BRASSES.htm
scroll down a bit... very interesting!

Nice find, etaoin. I read the whole article. I found another word used in a way I've not seen before. A long time ago, infants' diapers commonly had a raised crosshatch pattern. I wonder which usage came first.

From the encyclopedia article:
"The Flemish examples have the figures engraved in the centre of a large plate, the background filled in with diapered or scroll work, and the inscription placed round~ the edge of the plate. "
The etymology of "diaper" is interesting.
diaper ['daýəpə]
noun
1 the U.S. and Canadian word for: nappy1

2 a a woven pattern on fabric consisting of a small repeating design, esp. diamonds
b fabric having such a pattern
c such a pattern, used as decoration

verb
3 [transitive] to decorate with such a pattern
[ETYMOLOGY: 14th Century: from Old French diaspre, from Medieval Latin diasprus made of diaper, from Medieval Greek diaspros pure white, from dia- + aspros white, shining]

i think we covered diaper cloth-- not too long ago..above the fold in Q & A, i think. Diaper cloth (ie cloth woven with diamonds and texture) was commonly used (when made in 100% cotton) as cloth for babies bottoms.. so diaper cloth, became cloth diapers..(at least in US)

Cloth type/names are very old.. says something about textiles.. (Anu touch on that in one of the comments. recently, how closely scripted pages were refered to by the monk as being text(ile) like.. )

Textiles (cloth) and technology both share a root-- text (writen words) are said to resemble woven cloth -the ink on the page creates a text (like)pattern- texture if you will!

The weavers of the hebradies are right, If it wasn't for the work of the weavers, no one else could get anything done.. Its is the weaving of cloth that starts the ball rolling.. (and language echo's that!)


see this link
http://dev.celtic-lyrics.com/lyrics/131

And I always thought cloth diaper was a retronym.