The pattern made from broken checks or abstract four-pointed shapes is houndstooth.
Houndstooth is a two-colour textile design traditionally associated with black-and-white wool or tweed. Its jagged motifs form a repeating tessellation: each shape resembles a stylised canine tooth, although the pattern is geometric rather than a literal animal image. It is also called dogtooth, hounds-tooth check, or pied-de-poule.
The traditional weave uses alternating groups of four dark and four light threads in both the warp and weft, usually in a simple 2/2 twill. Early examples include Bronze Age textiles from the Hallstatt salt mines in Austria and the Gerum Cloak, dated to roughly 360–100 BC. The modern version is commonly linked to woven tweed from Scotland’s Lowlands.
Houndstooth is often confused with gingham, which has regular square checks, or argyle, which uses diamond shapes. A very small-scale houndstooth pattern may be called puppytooth. The design later moved beyond wool tailoring into dresses, accessories, interiors, and sportswear.