a type of fine cotton cloth that you can almost see through, used, especially in the past, for making clothes and curtains 平纹细布，细平布（旧时尤用于做衣物和窗帘） Word Originearly 17th cent.: from French mousseline, from Italian mussolina, from Mussolo ‘Mosul’, a city in northern Iraq, where it was first manufactured.