Clouded

How to spell clouded

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce clouded

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does clouded mean?

1. adjectiveCovered with cloud, or made dim, hazy, or unclear.
2. verbPast tense of cloud: covered, darkened, or made something unclear.

Clouded in a sentence

• adjective

  The clouded sky made it hard to predict the afternoon weather.

• verb

  The steam from the shower clouded the bathroom mirror within seconds.

• adjective

  Her clouded judgement after a long shift led to several small errors.

• verb

  Stress and exhaustion clouded his thinking during the negotiation.

Where does clouded come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the noun cloud, which comes from the Old English clud, a word that originally meant a mass of rock or a hill rather than anything in the sky. Speakers came to apply clud to the great billowing masses of vapour overhead because they looked like floating mounds of rock, and by the 1300s that watery sense had largely pushed out the older 'rock' meaning. The verb 'to cloud', meaning to cover, darken, or make unclear, developed naturally from the noun, and adding the regular suffix -ed gave both the past tense and the descriptive form 'clouded'. The older 'rock' sense survives faintly in the related word 'clod', a lump of earth, which shares the same ancient root. Because the modern spelling keeps the single -d of cloud and simply adds -ed, it rarely trips writers, though the long 'ow' sound can briefly tempt a stray letter.

How the word is built

• cloud (from Old English clud: a mass of rock or hill, later a rain cloud)
• -ed (past-tense and adjective suffix)