Stockinette is a soft cotton cloth that stretches, used above all for bandages — the tube of thin, springy material a nurse pulls over your arm or leg before putting a plaster cast or a firm bandage on top. It stretches because of the way it is knitted rather than woven, so it gives with the body instead of cutting into it. That same stretch makes it useful elsewhere: butchers wrap meat in it, and it is sometimes used for cloths and for baby clothes. Knitters know the word in a slightly different way. In knitting, stockinette stitch — Americans say 'stockinette', British knitters usually say 'stocking stitch' — is the most ordinary knitting pattern of all: smooth V shapes on the front, little bumps on the back. It is what a plain T-shirt-like knitted fabric looks like. So if you meet the word in a knitting pattern rather than a hospital, it is talking about the stitch, not about bandages. The word is not common in everyday conversation; you meet it in hospitals, craft shops and instructions.

彈性棉織布、彈性繃帶內襯布（打石膏前套在手腳上的那種軟彈性布筒）；在編織裡則指「平針織法」（英式常說 stocking stitch）