T-Shirt Glossary: 109 Terms, and What Each One Costs You

Fabric is 45–55% of what a blank costs, so these are the terms that move money. Everything else on this page is a smaller lever than weight and yarn.

GSM

Grams per square metre. It predicts three things — cost, drape, and whether the shirt is wearable in heat — and does not predict quality. A well-made 200gsm crew outlasts a badly made 250gsm one. White below 160gsm is see-through in daylight; 200gsm is the practical floor for a sellable white tee.

→ GSM guide

Jersey knit

The standard t-shirt knit: one smooth face, one looped face, stretch across the width, almost none along the length. It is the cheapest knit to produce, which is why it dominates. Its weakness is that it twists after washing if the yarn was not relaxed before cutting.

Interlock knit

Two interlocked jersey layers, smooth on both sides. Denser than jersey, holds shape better, costs roughly 10–20% more. Choose it when the shirt is sold as premium and the customer will feel it; there is no point paying for it under a heavy print.

Pique knit

A textured, waffle-like surface and the classic polo knit. It resists the pull of an embroidery needle better than jersey, which is why logos sit flat on polos and drift on soft tees. Heavier in the hand at the same gsm because of the structure.

Rib knit

Alternating knit and purl columns producing ridges. The elasticity of a neckband comes from this structure, not only from elastane. Rib with no elastane still stretches; it simply does not recover as well after a dozen washes.

1x1 rib

One knit column, one purl column. Softer and stretchier than 2×1, and cheaper. Fine for a light fashion tee; it is also the rib most likely to wave out of shape on a collar within a season.

2x1 rib knit

Two knit columns, one purl. Firmer and less stretchy than 1×1, so the collar keeps its shape longer. On a retail tee that will be washed weekly, this is the difference the customer notices in month four.

Combed ring spun cotton

Two processes, not one: combing removes short fibres before spinning, ring spinning twists the yarn continuously. The result is smoother, stronger, pills less, and costs 8–15% more. Worth paying when the shirt is sold on feel; wasted under a full-coverage print.

→ Combed vs ring spun

Carded ring spun cotton

Carded yarns keep a wider range of fibre lengths and are not combed, so they are less uniform and slightly rough. Cheaper, perfectly serviceable for promotional tees, and noticeably coarser on dark colours where surface fuzz shows.

Ring spun

A spinning method: a drafted rope of fibre is continuously twisted and thinned. Produces a finer, smoother yarn with short surface hairs compared with open-end. Better for fine type and crisper print edges.

Open-end cotton

Rotor spinning. Faster and cheaper than ring spinning, coarser in the hand, with more surface hair. Fine for giveaways and solid-colour work; fine detail under about 10pt loses definition on it.

Air jet yarn

An open-end variant that uses jets of air to twist the fibre. Gives a softer hand and better pill resistance than conventional rotor yarn, which is why it appears in mid-price retail tees.

Singles

The thickness of a single yarn, written as 20s, 30s, 40s. Finer counts feel smoother and cost more, but a high count does not by itself make a better shirt — weight, construction and finishing matter more.

Cotton count

The number of 840-yard hanks that weigh one pound. A higher count means a finer yarn. It is the number behind "30 singles" on a retail tag, and it is quoted far more often than it is measured.

Ply

How many single yarns are twisted together. One-ply is a single yarn; two-ply is two twisted together. Two-ply is stronger and more uniform, and it is why a two-ply shirt can feel smoother at the same gsm.

Two ply

Two single yarns twisted together before knitting. Less pilling, more uniform surface, higher cost. If a supplier cannot tell you the ply, the claim "premium cotton" is marketing rather than construction.

Pima cotton

A long-staple cotton variety. Longer fibres mean a smoother, stronger yarn with less pilling. It is a fibre, not a process — pima that has not been combed is still a carded yarn.

Soft spun cotton

A softer spinning or finishing route that prioritises hand feel. Comfortable and pleasant to sell; slightly more prone to pilling than a tightly spun combed yarn, so it suits fashion more than uniform work.

CVC

Chief Value Cotton — a cotton/polyester blend where cotton is over 50%. Cheaper than 100% cotton, shrinks less, prints well, breathes less. A 60/40 CVC is a legitimate product; it is not the same shirt as a 100% cotton one.

Melange

Yarns of different tones blended together for a mottled, cloudy look. It is a design effect, not a dye fault. Print coverage varies because the base is not a solid colour — check a strike-off before approving a light-coloured design.

Marled

Two or more distinctly coloured yarns twisted together, giving visible streaks. Stronger contrast than melange. Same print caution applies: the background is not flat, so thin inks read unevenly.

Blend

Any fabric of more than one fibre. Blending changes shrinkage, hand, breathability and cost, and it changes how DTG ink behaves — water-based ink binds to cotton, so a high-polyester blend prints poorly.

Spandex

Elastane. In a neckband, 2–5% improves recovery and is worth having. Above that the fabric starts to feel synthetic and the garment cannot be recycled as cotton. It is measured as a percentage on the care label.

Heather

A mottled grey or tonal surface made by blending dyed and undyed fibres. Very common in retail tees and popular for a vintage look. Prints sit slightly differently than on a flat colour, so it needs its own strike-off.

Slub

Deliberate thick-and-thin irregularities in the yarn, producing texture. A design choice. Avoid it for fine line art or small text, because the uneven surface breaks up detail.

Tri-blend

Typically cotton, polyester and rayon. Very soft drape and a vintage hand. Prints less opaquely, shrinks less predictably and costs more. A favourite of streetwear, a poor choice for uniform programmes.

Tubular body

The body is knitted as a tube, so there are no side seams. Cheaper to make because it removes two sewing operations, and it removes the seam that can pucker — but fit through the waist is less controllable than a side-seamed body.

→ Blank t-shirt range

These decide whether a shirt survives three washes and whether a print can be placed where the artwork wants it. They cost cents and they are the first thing a buyer notices when it is missing.

Set-in sleeves

The sleeve is sewn into a curved armhole, the standard tee construction. It gives a structured shoulder line and takes more sewing steps than a raglan, which is why cheap tees often move to raglan instead.

Raglan sleeves

The seam runs diagonally from the underarm to the collarbone, so there is no shoulder seam. Athletic look, common in baseball-style tees. Two cautions: the seam crosses the corners of a chest print, and it must be flatlocked or it rubs.

Side-seamed tee

Front and back panels joined at the sides. Better fit and less twisting through the body than a tubular tee, at the cost of two more sewing operations. Most premium retail blanks are side-seamed.

Coverseamed

A seam that covers both raw edges with an overlock-type stitch. Strong and flat, so it is used at shoulders and hems where strength matters more than invisibility.

Flatlock stitching

An interlocking seam that lies flat with no bulk. Used on performance wear and raglan seams because it does not chafe. It is a stronger signal of quality than the print on top of it.

Double-needle stitching

Two parallel rows of stitches on a hem or seam. The standard finish on a decent tee; stronger than a single row and the visual cue buyers use to judge construction without measuring anything.

Triple-needle stitched

Three parallel rows. Heavy-duty finish common on workwear and heavyweight tees. It costs more per garment and is worth it only where abrasion is the main failure mode.

Bartack

A dense bar of stitches used to reinforce a stress point — the point of a V-neck, pocket corners, the end of a placket. Cheap to add and the single most effective fix for a V-neck that curls.

→ V-neck construction

Back yoke

A panel across the upper back joining the shoulders. Helps the garment drape and adds structure. For printing, it means a seam across the upper back that a large back print must either clear or cross deliberately.

Neckband

The ribbed band around the neck opening. Its recovery decides how long the shirt looks new, because a stretched or waving collar is the most visible failure on an otherwise intact tee.

→ Crew neck detail

Self-fabric collar

A collar made from the same body fabric rather than a rib. Softer and more relaxed, less elastic recovery. Common on vintage-style tees where a slightly stretched neckline is part of the look.

Tubular collar

A collar knitted as a tube with no join, so there is no seam at the back of the neck. Neater and more comfortable. It says nothing about the rib content, so ask about elastane separately.

Serge

An overlock stitch that binds a raw edge to stop fraying. An inside finish — invisible from outside, and the difference between a clean interior and one that sheds thread in the wash.

V patch

A small triangular reinforcement at the point of a V-neck. Without it, the point stretches, curls and takes the whole neckline with it. Ask for a bartack or a V patch, ideally both.

Scoop neck

A deeper, wider round neckline. Shows more chest and reduces the area available for a full front print — a design that fits a crew may collide with the neckline on a scoop.

Drop tail

A back hem lower than the front, so the shirt stays tucked. It also shifts where a back print sits; a design centred on a standard tee will look high on a drop-tail body.

Full cut

A generous, roomy fit through the body. Not the same as oversized: full cut usually keeps the shoulder in place and adds room in the chest and waist, while an oversized pattern moves the shoulder too.

Taped neck

A strip of tape sewn over the neck-to-shoulder seam. Costs a few cents, stops the shoulder stretching when the shirt is pulled on, and is the cheapest single upgrade to collar life on a low-cost tee.

Drop shoulder

The shoulder seam sits outward on the upper arm rather than on the shoulder point. Softens the silhouette and makes the sleeve look shorter and wider. It also intrudes on the space a wide back print would use.

→ Oversized and boxy

Coverstitch hem

Two needle rows with a covering thread on the inside. Stretchy, typical of knitwear hems, and it lets the hem move with the fabric instead of cracking the stitching when pulled.

Dyeing decides whether a reorder matches the first batch. Finishing decides how the shirt feels and how much it shrinks. Both are invisible in a photo and decisive in a second order.

Garment dyed

Dyed after the garment is cut and sewn. Softer hand and a slightly irregular, lived-in tone. The trade-off is that an exact match on reorder is impossible, because each bath differs — which matters for uniforms and not at all for fashion.

Piece dyed

Fabric dyed in the piece before cutting. The most consistent route, and the standard for stock colours. If colour consistency across reorders is a hard requirement, this is the process to specify.

Yarn dyed

Yarn dyed before knitting, so stripes and checks are woven in rather than printed. Best colour fastness of any route and the most expensive. Used where a stripe has to survive industrial washing.

Pigment dyed

Pigment sits on the surface of the fibre rather than bonding inside it, giving a faded, vintage look that softens further with washing. The fading is the product, not a defect — but it means the shirt cannot be matched to a pantone.

Overdyed

A garment dyed over a base colour to reach a deeper, irregular tone. Produces richness that flat dyeing cannot, and variation between pieces by design. Budget for the variation or choose a flat dye.

Garment washed

Washed after making, which softens the fabric, reduces residual shrinkage and gives a worn feel. It adds cost and it removes the "crisp" look — which is the point on a vintage-style tee.

Enzyme washed

Cellulase enzymes digest surface fuzz, softening the fabric and lightly fading it. Effective, and easy to overdo: too much treatment thins the fabric and shortens the shirt’s life.

Stonewashed

Pumice stones abrade the garment for a pronounced fade. Strong visual effect with a real cost in fabric strength, particularly at thin spots like collar edges and hems.

Sandwashed

A fine abrasive process producing a silky, peach-like surface. Common on silk and rayon blends; on cotton it reads as soft and slightly dusty rather than shiny.

Peached

Brushed to a soft, fuzzy surface. Pleasant against the skin, and it shows wear at folds and edges sooner because the raised fibres flatten first.

Brushed

Nap raised mechanically with brushes. Warmer and softer, and more prone to pilling because the raised fibres tangle. Standard on fleece, optional on jersey.

Sueded

A very fine brushing that gives a suede-like hand. Feels expensive; prints less crisply because the surface is not flat. Fine detail under about 1mm will soften.

Pre-shrunk

Fabric shrunk before cutting, which reduces but does not eliminate washing shrinkage. Treat it as a reduction, not a guarantee: a 2–3% residual shrink is normal on a pre-shrunk cotton tee.

Colorfast

Resistance to fading and bleeding during washing and exposure to light. Not a binary property and not a certificate — the only meaningful test is to wash the actual garment twice at 40°C and look.

Pilling

Small balls of tangled fibre on the surface, caused by abrasion acting on short fibres. Worst on carded, loosely spun yarns and where a bag strap or seat belt rubs. Combed, tightly spun yarns pill far less.

Anti-pill finish

A treatment applied to reduce pilling. It helps on a mediocre yarn and is largely unnecessary on a well-combed one. Treat it as a patch, not a substitute for fibre quality.

Reject dye

A dye lot rejected for shade or tone variation and sold at a discount. The saving is real and so is the risk: the colour will not match your approved standard or your next order.

Dyed to match

Trims — rib, tape, drawcord — dyed in the same bath as the body, so there is no shade mismatch. Without it, a black rib on a black body can read as two different blacks under retail light.

Tie-dye

Resist dyeing by hand or machine, so every piece differs. Not a uniform product and cannot be sold as one. Agree the variation range on a physical sample before a bulk run.

Dye lot

The output of one dye bath. Shades differ between lots, which is why a reorder is close but rarely identical. Keep one garment from each batch as a physical swatch — it is the only reliable reference.

→ Why whites differ between batches

Snow wash

An aggressive bleach and abrasion process producing a mottled, snowy surface. Visually strong and hard on the fabric: expect lower tear strength and a shorter wearable life than a plain dyed tee.

Bleach fade

Controlled bleaching to create a worn, faded look. The colour is deliberately unstable, so it will continue to fade with washing. Say so on the product page or expect complaints.

Mercerized

A caustic soda treatment that swells the fibre, producing a smoother, stronger, more lustrous yarn that takes dye deeper. It is a finishing step, so it appears alongside combed or ring-spun rather than instead of them.

The words a print shop uses when quoting you. Every one of them changes either the price or the failure mode, and most of them are absent from a supplier glossary written for apparel dealers.

Screen printing

Ink pushed through a mesh screen, one screen per colour, then cured. Cheapest per piece above roughly fifty units and the most durable finish on cotton. Cannot reproduce a photograph, and every extra colour adds a screen and a setup.

→ Screen printing costs

Plastisol

A PVC-based ink that cures by heat and sits on top of the fibre. Opaque, durable, and thick enough to feel. It is the workhorse ink for spot colour — and the one that cracks at wash five if it was under-cured.

Water-based ink

Ink that soaks into the fibre instead of sitting on it, so the print feels like the shirt. Softer and more breathable; fades faster than plastisol, especially on dark garments where there is no underbase.

Discharge printing

A paste that removes the garment’s dye and replaces it with colour, leaving no ink layer. The softest possible print on a dark shirt. Limited to dischargeable dyes, so the palette is restricted and the shirt colour must be tested first.

Halftone

Dots of varying size used to simulate tone and gradients. Necessary for photographs. The dot size sets the detail limit: too fine and the screen fills in, too coarse and the image reads as dots at arm’s length.

Underbase

A white or grey layer printed first so colour shows on a dark garment. It adds opacity and it adds hand. On a black tee, an underbase is the difference between a bright print and a muddy one — and one extra screen on the quote.

DTG

Direct-to-garment printing: water-based ink jetted into the fibre, no screens, no setup. Right answer below about fifty pieces and for photographic art; three to four times the per-piece cost of a one-colour screen print at volume.

→ DTG cost and limits

Cure

Heating the ink until it fully polymerises. Under-cured ink looks perfect in the box and cracks at wash five; over-cured ink scorches the fabric or yellows a white print. It is the invisible variable that decides whether a good design becomes a refund.

Mesh count

Threads per inch in the screen. A high count holds fine detail and lays a thin ink film; a low count lays a heavy deposit for a bold, opaque print. Most spot-colour work sits in the middle of the range.

Strike-off

A printed sample on the actual garment, in the actual ink, before the bulk run. Approving artwork on a screen proves nothing about how the ink behaves on that fabric — the strike-off is the only honest check.

→ Samples and approvals

Heat transfer

A printed sheet applied to the garment with a heat press. Economic for small runs and names, and good for full colour. The weak point is the edge, which can lift after repeated washing if the press settings were wrong.

Puff print

An additive in the ink expands under heat, raising the print off the surface. Strong tactile effect, thick hand, and unsuitable for fine detail because expansion blurs edges.

Foil

Metallic foil fused onto an adhesive print. High visual impact on dark garments and on black in particular. It cracks along fold lines with washing, so keep the design away from areas that crease.

Reflective print

Ink loaded with glass beads that reflect light back to the source. Reads as a dull grey in daylight and lights up under headlights. Stiff hand, so it suits a panel or a logo rather than a full front.

Embroidery

Thread stitched into the fabric. Does not crack or fade like ink, so it outlasts the garment in most cases. On knit fabric it needs a stabiliser, and detail below about 2mm is lost — a logo designed for print usually has to be redrawn.

→ Embroidery costs

Digitizing

Converting artwork into a stitch file the machine can run. A one-time cost of roughly $25–60 depending on complexity, and it is not a file conversion — the logo is redrawn for thread direction, density and overlap.

Stitch count

The number of stitches in a design, which is what embroidery is priced on. A left-chest logo is typically 4,000–7,000 stitches; a large back design can exceed 20,000, at which point the price approaches a print and the garment starts to distort.

Backing / stabilizer

Material placed behind the embroidery to stop the knit stretching under the stitches. Cut-away for dense designs, tear-away for light ones. Skipping it is the single most common cause of a puckered logo that never recovers.

3D puff embroidery

Foam laid under the stitches so the design rises above the surface. Striking on caps and heavy tees. Simple block shapes only: thin strokes and small text collapse under the foam.

The vocabulary of the invoice rather than the garment. This is where a quote becomes a landed cost, and where a 27% swing can hide behind one line that was never mentioned.

MOQ

Minimum order quantity. A stock minimum is set by handling cost; a factory minimum is set by the dye bath. Ours is 100 pieces per style and colour, with sizes mixable inside one colour — a second colour is a second minimum.

→ Why 100 pieces

FOB

Free On Board. The seller delivers the goods to the named port and the price stops there; freight, insurance, duty and brokerage are yours. It is the cheapest-looking number in any comparison and the one most often compared wrongly.

→ Comparing wholesale quotes

CIF

Cost, Insurance and Freight: the price includes delivery to the destination port. Looks convenient, and it raises the customs value, so you pay duty on the freight as well as the goods. A CIF quote is not automatically cheaper.

DDP

Delivered Duty Paid. The seller handles freight, duty and clearance and delivers to your door. Simpler for the buyer and more expensive per piece, with the duty folded invisibly into the unit price — ask for the breakdown.

HS code

The tariff classification that sets the duty rate. Apparel is classified by fibre, knit, garment type and gender — not by the product name. A supplier who has never been asked for a fibre composition has been guessing the code.

→ Duties and customs

Customs value

The declared value duty is charged on: the goods price, plus freight if the terms are CIF. Never your retail price. It is a decision you sign, and it is auditable, which is why undervaluing is a liability rather than a saving.

De minimis

The shipment value below which duty and formal entry do not apply in a given country. It changes by jurisdiction and by regulation, it is not a planning strategy, and it is why small parcels arrive with no paperwork while a pallet does not.

LCL

Less than Container Load — your goods share a container. Priced per cubic metre plus fixed fees, and economic from roughly one pallet upward. The fixed fees are what make small LCL shipments expensive per piece.

→ Freight modes

FCL

Full Container Load — one container, yours alone. The cheapest per-unit option at volume and pointless below roughly 20 cubic metres, where you pay for air you are not using.

Volumetric weight

A billing weight calculated from carton dimensions. Carriers charge the greater of actual and volumetric weight, which penalises light, bulky goods like apparel. Reducing a carton by a couple of centimetres can move a shipment into a cheaper band.

Landed cost

Goods plus freight plus duty plus brokerage plus inland delivery, per sellable unit. The only number that decides whether a price works. On a $2.60 FOB tee with $0.55 freight, landed cost runs $3.58 to $4.55 depending on the duty rate.

→ Duty scenarios

Consolidation

Combining several items into one shipment so fixed costs are paid once. A conventional dropship setup sends one international parcel per order line; consolidation removes the duplicate parcels, which is decisive on low-ticket items.

Brokerage / entry

The customs broker’s fee per entry, not per piece. On a 100-piece order it can add $0.30–1.00 per shirt; on 5,000 it is a rounding error. This is a large part of why stock inside the destination country exists at all.

Dye-bath minimum

The quantity a dye bath must run, which is the real reason custom colours carry high minimums. It has nothing to do with the number of shirts the customer wants and everything to do with the kilograms of yarn the mill must dye.

Sizing is where an order quietly loses money: the wrong curve strands stock, and inconsistent grading makes a "large" mean three different things.

Unisex block

One pattern cut to fit everyone, which in practice means a straighter body and a wider shoulder. It is what most printers should buy for events. It is not a women’s cut, and a customer can feel the difference at the shoulder line.

→ Women’s cut versus unisex

Boxy fit

A wider, shorter body that sits square instead of draping. Needs 230gsm and above to keep the shape; on light jersey it collapses into the body and loses the silhouette.

→ Boxy and oversized

Extended sizes

2XL and above. They use 15–20% more fabric at 2XL and up to 40% at 4XL, so they cost more to make and should cost more to buy. Ordering them at the same unit price means either the grade was cut or the supplier is absorbing it.

→ Plus size sizing

Size run / curve

How an order is distributed across sizes. It decides sell-through far more than the design does. A first order should concentrate at the middle sizes with a thin tail above 3XL, not split evenly across the range.

→ Size curve tool

Tolerance

The permitted measurement variance, usually ±1cm. Two shirts from the same case can differ by that much and both be correct. It is why a size chart is a range, and why measuring one garment proves less than buyers expect.

Grade rule

The increment applied between sizes when a pattern is graded. Inconsistent grading is why a large in one range is a medium in another, and why comparing size labels across brands without comparing chest measurements is guesswork.

→ Size chart library