Small samples or pieces of fabric, paint, or other material used to show color or quality; plural of swatch.
Origin uncertain; possibly from Dutch 'swadde' or a variant of 'patch'. First appeared in English in the 17th century as a term for cloth samples.
Interior designers and architects obsessively collect swatches because seeing a paint color on a tiny chip is wildly different from seeing it covering an entire wall—lighting, surface texture, and surrounding colors completely change perception.
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