A man-made fibre that stretches a long way and springs back to its original shape. It is almost never used alone — a small percentage is mixed into cotton or nylon so that leggings, swimsuits, cycling shorts, and stretchy jeans hug the body and keep their shape after washing. Look at a clothing label and you will see something like '95% cotton, 5% spandex'. The naming is regional and worth knowing: spandex is the American word, elastane is the standard word in Europe, and Lycra is a brand name (originally DuPont's) that many people use for the material generally, rather as people say Post-it or Band-Aid. All three mean the same fibre. In Taiwan the label most often reads 彈性纖維 or 萊卡, and 萊卡 is the brand-as-common-name, the way Lycra works in English. The word is uncountable — 'a little spandex in the fabric', not 'a spandex'. It also has a joking life in English: 'a man in spandex' conjures superhero costumes or 1980s aerobics videos, and the phrase is usually meant to raise a smile.