cloth

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English cloth, clath, from Old English clāþ (“cloth, clothes, covering, sail”), from Proto-Germanic *klaiþą (“garment”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *gleyt- (“to cling to, cleave, stick”) (compare Albanian ngjit (“to stick, attach, glue”)), a form of *gleh₁y- (“to smear; to stick”). Cognate with Scots clath (“cloth”), North Frisian klaid (“dress, garment”), Saterland Frisian Klood (“dress, apparel”), West Frisian kleed (“cloth, article of clothing”), Dutch kleed (“robe, dress”), Low German kleed (“dress, garment”), German Kleid (“gown, dress”), Danish klæde (“cloth, dress”), Norwegian klede, Swedish kläde (“cloth”), Icelandic klæði (“cloth, dressing”), Old English clīþan (“to adhere, stick”).

Pronunciation

Noun

cloth (countable and uncountable, plural cloths or (obsolete) clothes)

  1. (countable, uncountable) A fabric, usually made of woven, knitted, or felted fibres or filaments, such as used in dressing, decorating, cleaning or other practical use.
    • 1820, Encyclopaedia Britannica; Or A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature‎, 6th edition, volume 20, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Company, page 501:
      In trumpets for assisting the hearing, all reverbation of the trumpet must be avoided. It must be made thick, of the least elastic materials, and covered with cloth externally.
    • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Lisson Grove Mystery”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:
      “It was last Saturday […] that two boys, playing in the little spinney just outside Wembley Park Station, came across three large parcels done up in American cloth. […]”
    • 2017, Roger Holden, Manufacturing the Cloth of the World, →ISBN, page 26:
      There were other types of looms for producing various specialised types of cloth, for example fustians and velvets, but there is not space here to discuss these.
  2. Specifically, a tablecloth, especially as spread before a meal or removed afterwards.
  3. (countable) A piece of cloth used for a particular purpose.
    • 1824, The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction:
      The first room the people enter was formerly the Presence Chamber, which is hung completely with black, and at the r-end a cloth of estate, with a chair of estate standing upon the Haut-place under the state.
    • 2004, Robin D. Gill, Topsy-turvy 1585, →ISBN:
      The stole is a long scarf-like cloth that hangs around the neck, over the shoulders and down the front of bishops and priests [generally, two-four inches across].
    • 2009, Albert Jackson, David Day, Popular Mechanics Complete Home How-to, →ISBN, page 80:
      Wipe the surface with a cloth dampened with mineral spirits in order to remove the sanding dust, then brush on a full coat of varnish.
  4. (figurative) Substance or essence; the whole of something complex.
    • 2001, Sang H. Kim, The Art of Harmony: A Guide to Happiness, →ISBN, page 14:
      . If we look beyond the chaos of each moment, we cannot help seeing that we are but one glorious thread in the cloth of life.
    • 2004, Thomas D. Hamm, The Quakers in America, →ISBN, page 124:
      The disparate threads contained are, in the cloth of a religious society, ready to revolutionize the world and bring the Kingdom of Heaven into its full reality on earth.
    • 2009, John Malcolm Dowling, Chin-Fang Yap, Chronic Poverty in Asia: Causes, Consequences and Policies, →ISBN:
      . The rhythm of life in rural Asia has followed an unchanging pattern from generation to generation and for the chronically poor it is soaked in the cloth of continued deprivation.
    • 2012, R. Tirrell Leonard Jr., In The Murmuring Trees, →ISBN, page 79:
      A wrinkle in the cloth of time, a cry of soft caress and fragrant dreams to weld the metal fabric souls in blends so held in high regards across the lands and sky.
  5. (figurative) Appearance; seeming.
    • 2002, Patricia L. Munhall, Ed Madden, Virginia Macken Fitzsimons, The Emergence of Man Into the 21st Century, →ISBN, page 407:
      Like all cultural realities, contemporary modernism is packed with its own myths, its own largely unrecognized metaphors, its own poetics literally perceived -- or should we say, "misperceived"? -- its own reifications and idiosyncratic distinctions. And it comes to us decorated in the cloth of emancipation, a new freedom that would seem to liberate us from those restraints and bonds that were the excretions of an older mindset, an alien political and social order, a rigid and stultifying hierarchy now perceived as riddled with superstition, arbitrary premise, and false conjunction — in contrast, of course, to the liberated mindset that bespeaks our own age!
    • 2007, Kathy Steffen, First, There Is a River, →ISBN:
      Unbelievably, he smiled through his cracked and bleeding lips. A horrible nightmare cloaked in the cloth of good.
    • 2011, Beth Linker, War's Waste: Rehabilitation in World War I America, →ISBN, page 148:
      Not until rehabilitation was wrapped in the cloth of wartime patriotism—a program billed as necessary for the welfare of disabled soldiers—did it receive overwhelming congressional support.
    • 2014, Shara Russell, In the Shadow of Faith, →ISBN:
      After being at your beck and call all these years, he wants a woman, not the consummate teen-ager pretending she's a grownup wrapping her flesh in the cloth of her church.
  6. A form of attire that represents a particular profession or status.
    • 1993, Kwame Anthony Appiah, In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture, →ISBN, page 185:
      But he could not come in the white cloth of celebration to a burial service, and he could hardly come in the cloth of mourning to celebrate his two decades on the stool.
    • 2004, Alison Dundes Renteln, The Cultural Defense, →ISBN, page 151:
      Wearing the cloth of kings would seem to be an appropriate symbol.
    • 2013, Paul Doherty, The House of Death, →ISBN:
      Occasionally the most fortunate found a jewel, a golden-encrusted dagger, a ring, or some other precious gem which decorated the cloths of glory the Persian chieftains and satraps wore.
    • 2016, Stephen John Goundry, Hot Coals of Fire: The Sanctity of the Ministry, →ISBN:
      The Old Testament Ministers of God, Aaron and his sons, who were the priests, wore special 'cloths of service.' They were dressed in 'holy garments' so that they could stand and offer in the Presence of God, being beautified by them and being enabled through them to perform their sacred duties.
  7. (in idioms) Priesthood, clergy.
    He is a respected man of the cloth.

Synonyms

Derived terms

Translations
tablecloth — see tablecloth
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Irish

Etymology

From Old Irish cloth, from Proto-Celtic *klutom (compare Welsh clod), nominalization of Proto-Indo-European *ḱlutós (“famous”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱlew- (“to hear”). Cognate with Ancient Greek κλυτός (klutós, “famous”), Sanskrit श्रुत (śruta, “famous”), and English loud.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /klˠɔ(h)/

Noun

cloth m (genitive singular cloith, nominative plural cloith) (literary)

  1. fame, honor
  2. reputation

Declension
Declension of cloth

First declension

Bare forms:

Case Singular Plural
Nominative cloth cloith
Vocative a chloith a chlotha
Genitive cloith cloth
Dative cloth cloith

Forms with the definite article:

Case Singular Plural
Nominative an cloth na cloith
Genitive an chloith na gcloth
Dative leis an gcloth

don chloth

 leis na cloith

Mutation
Irish mutation
Radical Lenition Eclipsis
cloth chloth gcloth
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old English clāþ, from Proto-Germanic *klaiþą.

Pronunciation
  • (Early ME, Northern ME) IPA(key): /klɑːθ/
  • IPA(key): /klɔːθ/

Noun

cloth (plural clothes or close)

  1. Cloth; fabric or an individual piece of it, especially made by weaving:
    1. Table linen; a decorative cloth for the table.
    2. A blanket or sheet; bed linen.
    3. An ornamental cloth or carpet with fine detailing.
    4. A specific standard length or area of cloth.
    5. A cloth used to filter or sieve unwanted materials (usually in the kitchen).
    • c. 1395, John Wycliffe, John Purvey [et al.], transl., Bible (Wycliffite Bible (later version), MS Lich 10.)‎, published c. 1410, Matheu 3:12, page 2r, column 1; republished as Wycliffe's translation of the New Testament, Lichfield: Bill Endres, 2010:
      whos wynewing cloþ is in his hond .· ⁊ he ſchal fulli clenſe his coꝛn flooꝛ / and he ſchal gadere his wheete in to his berne .· but þe chaf he ſchal bꝛenne wiþ fier þat mai not be quenchid
      His winnowing fan is in his hand; he'll fully clean his threshing-floor, he'll gather up his wheat into his barn, and he'll burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.
    1. The cloth babies are wrapped in; babywear.
  2. (often in the plural) An item of clothes; a garment; something to be worn.
  3. Clothes, apparel; what is worn.
    • c. 1395, John Wycliffe, John Purvey [et al.], transl., Bible (Wycliffite Bible (later version), MS Lich 10.)‎, published c. 1410, Apocalips 4:4, page 118v, column 1; republished as Wycliffe's translation of the New Testament, Lichfield: Bill Endres, 2010:
      ⁊ in þe cumpas of þe ſeete.· weren foure ⁊ twentı ſmale ſeetıs ⁊ abouen þe troones foure ⁊ twentı eldere men ſıttynge. hılıd aboute wıþ whıte cloþıs.· ⁊ in þe heedıs of hem golden coꝛouns
      And around the perimeter of the seat there were twenty-four small seats, and on those seats twenty-four elders sat, wearing white clothing and having golden crowns on their heads.
  4. (Late Middle English) A bodily tissue or layer.
  5. (Late Middle English, rare) An illness or medical condition evident from boils.

Derived terms

Descendants
  • English: cloth
  • Scots: clath, clathe, claith

References

Old Irish

Etymology

From Proto-Celtic *klutom (compare Welsh clod), nominalization of Proto-Indo-European *ḱlutós (“famous”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱlew- (“to hear”). Cognate with Ancient Greek κλυτός (klutós, “famous”), Sanskrit श्रुत (śruta, “famous”), and English loud.

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /kloθ/

Noun

cloth n (genitive cluith, nominative plural clotha)

  1. fame, honor
  2. reputation

Declension
Neuter o-stem
Singular Dual Plural
Nominative clothN clothN clothL, clotha
Vocative clothN clothN clothL, clotha
Accusative clothN clothN clothL, clotha
Genitive cluithL cloth clothN
Dative clothL clothaib clothaib
Initial mutations of a following adjective:
  • H = triggers aspiration
  • L = triggers lenition
  • N = triggers nasalization

Descendants

Mutation
Old Irish mutation
RadicalLenitionNasalization
cluith chluith cluith
pronounced with /ɡ(ʲ)-/
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every
possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.

Further reading
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