Smocking is a way of decorating cloth. You gather the cloth into many small folds, all the same size and close together, and then sew across those folds with lines of stitches so they stay gathered. The result is a panel that looks like rows of tiny pleats held in a pattern — often a honeycomb or diamond shape — and because the folds can open and close a little, the cloth stretches. That stretch is the point as much as the decoration: before elastic was common, smocking was how you made a garment fit close at the chest or wrist without a fastening. You see it most on children's clothes, especially little girls' party dresses and baby gowns, and on the front of some blouses. The word is a noun, and it names both the technique and the finished decorated area — a sewing teacher can say "I'm teaching smocking this term" or "look at the smocking on the front." It belongs to the world of sewing and handcraft; outside a sewing shop or a class, many English speakers would recognise the look but not have the word ready. Machine-made versions exist now and people still call them smocking, though hand-sewers may quietly feel that the real thing is stitched by hand.

抽褶繡、打褶繡（縫紉用語，指把布抓成細褶後用線固定的裝飾；台灣童裝店有時直接說「小澎褶」或英文 smocking）