Clad

How to spell clad

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce clad

What does clad mean?

1. adjectiveDressed in or covered with something, whether clothing or another material.

Clad in a sentence

• The hikers were warmly clad against the bitter wind.

• The old cottage walls were clad in thick green ivy.

Where does clad come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This little word is a survivor from very old English, where the verb clǣþan or clāþian meant 'to clothe' and was built on clāþ, the ancestor of the modern noun 'cloth'. Originally 'clad' was simply the past tense and past participle of 'clothe', so to say someone was clad meant they had been dressed. Over time the regular form 'clothed' took over for ordinary use, leaving 'clad' to survive mainly as an adjective with a slightly literary or descriptive flavour, as in 'warmly clad' or 'ivy-clad walls'. From the sense of being covered in cloth, it broadened to mean covered or coated in any material, which is why engineers speak of metal that is copper-clad or steel-clad. The spelling stays pleasingly simple because it never picked up the silent letters or doubled consonants that trip people up elsewhere; it is just the four letters c, l, a, d.

How the word is built

• clad: an old past-participle form of the verb 'clothe' (from Old English clǣþan, to clothe), used in modern English as an adjective; no separate prefix or suffix