nap

ChandlerのThe Big Sleep を読んでいます。
It was a wide room, the whole width of the house, It had a low beamed ceiling and brown plaster walls decked out with strips of Chinese embroidery and Chinese and Japanese prints in grained wood frames. There were low bookshelves, there was a thick pinkish Chinese rug in which a gopher could have spent a week without showing his nose above the nap.
"grained wood" の "grain" は 8/2/2011に取り上げています。
今日調べたい単語は最後に出てきた "nap" です。辞書を見ます。
・Oxford English Dictionary: The raised hairs, threads, or similar small projections on the surface of fabric or suede (used especially with reference to the direction in which they naturally lie): carefully machine the seam, following the direction of the nap
・Collins Dictionary: The nap of a carpet or of a cloth such as velvet is the top layer of short threads, which usually lie smoothly in one direction.
・Cambridge English Dictionary: the surface of a piece of cloth such as velvet, consisting of short threads that have been brushed in one direction
細かい描写を記述するChandlerが好みそうな単語でした。私は従来から知っている意味の方が好きですね。