Herringbone, also called broken twill weave, describes a distinctive V-shaped weaving pattern usually found in twill fabric. It is distinguished from a plain chevron by the break at reversal, which makes it resemble a broken zigzag. The pattern is called herringbone because it resembles the skeleton of a herring fish.
The order of interlacing which causes diagonal lines of warp and weft floats to be formed in the fabric is called twill weave. In the basic weaves of these diagonal lines are continuous but in some of their derivatives they may be broken or reversed periodically. The simplest possible repeat for a twill weave is 3 ends * 3 picks and there is no theoretical upper limit to the size of the repeat.