means A synthetic fabric made from petroleum-based polymers, prized for being cheap, durable, and resistant to wrinkles and shrinking.

from A modern chemist's compound word, built from Greek 'poly-' meaning 'many' plus 'ester,' a chemical term itself coined in the 19th century (likely shortened from German 'Essigäther,' 'acetic ether'). So 'polyester' literally means 'many esters' — a chain of repeating molecular links. The fiber was developed in the 1930s and '40s, and the name describes exactly what it is: a long polymer strung together from ester bonds, no romance required.