Do you find yourself regularly a little bit confused when you go shopping for area rugs online? Did you know there are other terms you can use to look up rugs or to refer to the rugs you decorate your home with? In some parts of the country or around the world, area rugs are referred to by slightly different names. If you’ve never heard them called “area rugs” or if you’re having trouble finding what you’re looking for because you can’t quite seem to search for the right keyword, check out our list of eight other ways to talk about your rugs.
Throw Rug
That small green area rugs you use to decorate the space beside your bed isn’t really big enough to take up much space in your room, so what should you call it? Smaller rugs, or those made of lesser-quality fibers in some situations, are often called throw rugs instead of area rugs. This basically refers to the fact that they’re easier to just “throw down” on the ground than their larger counterparts, since they are lighter, smaller, and can usually be handled by just one person rather than several.
Scatter Rug
Although it’s a little bit old-fashioned, the term scatter rug may be one you’ve heard here or there. This term has largely fallen out of use in recent generations, but your grandparents might have referred to their rugs as scatter rugs, and you may live in a part of the country where this phrase is still heard. Your purple area rugs on the floor of your dining room might be a scatter rug, but so might any other rug in your home. This is a phrase that can be used fairly interchangeably with area rug and doesn’t have much of a different meaning or specification.
Accent Rug
A 4×8 rug or smaller might be referred to as an accent rug, depending on how you’re using it in your interior space. These are usually smaller rugs that are used—you guessed it—as accent pieces to some other, larger, and more visually weighted piece of interior decor. Your rug may be an accent to your sofa, your bed, or even to another, larger rug. If you’re layering smaller rugs on top of larger ones, for example, you may end up calling the smaller rug an accent rug. This isn’t a term that is usually used for rugs that are the center of attention in a living room or formal dining room.
Floor Rug
Although the term floor rug is often used interchangeably with area rug, there is some connotation that a floor rug is a little bit larger than some of the other possibilities out there. For example, 10×12 rugs may be referred to as floor rugs because they take up the space of the whole floor. On the other hand, if you have a small 2×2 square rug in your bathroom by the sink, there’s a good chance you don’t really think of this rug as a floor rug, simply because it isn’t very large.
Oval Rug
The term oval rug is usually reserved for, unsurprisingly, oval area rugs like the ones you might see in an old-fashioned country kitchen. These rugs are usually made of braided fibers that are looped into an oval shape and stitched together to hold their form. Oval rugs are a very specific type of area rug, although they can come in just about any size or color. Their shape and the way they are made, however, does not waver, and so it’s incorrect to refer to any other type of rug as an oval rug. These are usually casual rugs that look great in very homey spaces with a casual feeling.
Traditional Rug
You may not hear area rugs referred to as traditional area rugs very often, but this is still a term that goes around now and then. A traditional rug, however, is actually a specific type of rug. Traditional area rugs are made of mostly natural fibers, such as wool, and may be hand-dyed or not, depending on the rug itself. They feature more old-fashioned designs such as repeating geometric patterns or, more commonly, florals with a border. They also incorporate jewel tones, earth tones, and other dark colors in most situations. Since this is a specific type of rug, it isn’t interchangeable with the term area rug.
Oriental Rug
Like traditional rugs, oriental rugs are a specific type of home decor that should not be confused with other types of rugs out there. If you have a 10 x 12 area rug that features just a couple of colors and is hand-woven or hand-dyed, you may have an oriental rug. However, more than the style or color, the term refers to where the rug was produced. If your rug did not come from one of a few different countries or locations, it probably can’t be technically called an oriental rug, even if it looks the part.
Persian Rug
Persian rugs are made in a specific location just like oriental rugs, and for the most part, they aren’t really rugs that are made in the modern world. These are almost always antique rugs with very old-fashioned, traditional designs and styles. Persian rugs are very expensive, very hard to find, and most likely not something you have decorating your home (unless you have pricey tastes!). It’s incorrect to refer to any area rug as a Persian rug, although many people make this mistake anyhow, especially when they really mean to talk about a traditional area rug (as defined above) or an oriental rug instead.
With so many different ways to talk about the rugs you love, it’s no wonder it can sometimes be challenging to find exactly what you’re looking for! Even speaking to someone from another part of the country who may refer to rugs in a different way can sometimes cause a little bit of confusion, so it’s a great idea to be sure you’ve brushed up in all your area rug terminology to reduce the possibility of getting your wires crossed here or there. Of course, when it comes down to it, most people do recognize the term “area rug,” but there’s no reason you can’t mix it up now and then, too!