cleat

From Middle English clete, from Old English *clēat, clēot, from Proto-Germanic *klautaz (“firm lump”), from Proto-Indo-European *gelewd-, from *gley- (“to glue, stick together, form into a ball”). Cognate with Dutch kloot (“ball; testicle”) and German Kloß. See also clay and clout.

• enPR: klēt, IPA^(key): /kliːt/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -iːt

cleat (plural cleats)

1. A strip of wood or iron fastened on transversely to something in order to give strength, prevent warping, hold position, etc.
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 35”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     [...] the people of that island erected lofty spars along the seacoast, to which the look-outs ascended by means of nailed cleats, something as fowls go upstairs in a hen-house.

   • 1995, Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures, page 6:

     I had learned that cattle willingly walk down a ramp that has cleats to provide secure, nonslip footing.

2. A continuous metal strip, or angled piece, used to secure metal components.
3. (nautical) A device to quickly affix a line or rope, and from which it is also easy to release.
   

   Nautical cleat
4. A protrusion on the bottom of a shoe or wheel meant for better traction.
5. An athletic shoe equipped with cleats.
   • 2020, Allyssa Loya, Sporty Bugs and Errors, page 26:

     He needs to put on five pieces of gear: his helmet, left glove, right glove, left cleat, and right cleat.

• expansion cleat
• French cleat

cleat (third-person singular simple present cleats, present participle cleating, simple past and past participle cleated)

1. To strengthen with a cleat.
2. (nautical) To tie off, affix, stopper a line or rope, especially to a cleat.

• CELTA, Cleta, eclat, ectal, éclat