clad
/klæd/
clad is the simple past and past participle of clothe.
Adjective
clad (not comparable)
- Wearing clothing or some other covering (for example, an armour) on the body; clothed, dressed.
- [F]rom his nook upleapt the venturous lad, / And flinging wide the cedar-carven door / Beheld an awful image saffron-clad / And armed for battle!1881, Oscar Wilde, “Charmides”, in Poems, London: David Bogue, […], →OCLC, page 106
- Her downcast eyes were almost mesmerized by the huge tweed-clad knees which towered like monoliths beside her.1912, James Stephens, chapter 10, in The Charwoman's Daughter; republished as Mary, Mary, New York: Boni & Liveright, (Please provide a date or year), page 66
- Synonyms:
- attired, beclad, raimented, aguised, clothed, dressed, habilimented, nonnude, sarkit, togged
- Antonyms:
- unclad, au naturel, bare, bare-ass, bare-assed, bare-bottomed, bare-bum, bare-butt, barefoot all over, bare naked
- Covered, enveloped in, or surrounded by a cladding, or a specified material or substance.
- On all sides, Goudet is shut in by mountains; rocky foot-paths, practicable at best for donkeys, join it to the outer world of France; and the men and women drink and swear, in their green corner, or look up at the snow-clad peaks in winter from the threshold of their homes [...]1879, Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, New York: Century, published 1907, page 25
- Into this book-clad room it followed the Bishop, with blue eyes and laughter on the red lips [...]1887, Hall Caine, chapter XXVIII, in The Deemster, volume 2, London: Chatto & Windus, page 283
- Adorned, ornamented.
Verb
clad (third-person singular simple present clads, present participle cladding, simple past and past participle clad or cladded)
- To clothe, to dress.
- At last faire Heſperus in higheſt ſkie / Had ſpent his lãpe [i.e., lampe] and brought forth dawning light, / Then vp he roſe, and clad him haſtily; / The dwarfe him brought his ſteed: ſo both away do fly.1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 6, page 20
- Muſicke and Poetry is his delight, / Therefore ile haue Italian Maskes by night, / Sweete ſpeeches, Comedies, and pleaſing ſhowes, / And in the day when he ſhall walke abroad, / Like Siluian Nimphs my Pages ſhall be clad, […]1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act...
- To cover with a cladding or another material (for example, insulation).
- [M]any bitter and extreme frosts at midsummer continually clothe and clad the discomfortable mountaines; […]1596, Thomas Lodge, “A Margarite of America, 1596. To the Noble, Learned and Vertuous Ladie, the Ladie Russell, T. L. Wisheth Affluence on Earth, and Felicitie in Heaven.”, in Clara Gebert, editor...
- He ſcarce had ſaid, when the bare Earth, till then / Deſert and bare, unſightly, unadorn'd, / Brought forth the tender Graſs whoſe verdure clad / Her Univerſal Face with pleaſant green, […]1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
- To imbue (with a specified quality); to envelop or surround.
- Moſt mercifull father, we beſeche thee ſo to ſende vpon theſe thy ſeruauntes thy heauenly bleſſyng, that they maye be cladde about with all iuſtice, & that thy worde ſpoken by theyr mouthes, may haue ſuch ſucceſſe, that it may neuer be ſpoken in vain.1552, Thomas Cranmer [et al.], compilers, “The Fourme of Ordering Priestes”, in The Boke of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacramentes, […], 2nd edition, London: […] Edwardi Whytchurche...
- O folly, thou hast power to make flesh glad, / When the rich soul in wretchedness is clad.1599 November (date written), Thomas Dekker, edited by [William Henry] Oliphant Smeaton, Old Fortunatus: A Play (The Temple Dramatists), London: J[oseph] M[alaby] Dent and Co. […], published 1904...
Meaning of clothe
Verb
clothe (third-person singular simple present clothes, present participle clothing, simple past and past participle clothed or (archaic) clad)
Synonyms of clad
Antonyms
- unclad
- au naturel
- bare
- bare-ass
- bare-assed
- bare-bottomed
- bare-bum
- bare-butt
- barefoot all over
- bare naked
10 more antonymsFewer antonyms
- bareskin
- bare-skinned
- Billy bollocks
- bollock naked
- bollocky
- buck ass naked
- buck naked
- butt-ass naked
- butt-naked
- butt-stinking
Forms of clad
| third-person singular present | clads |
|---|---|
| present participle | cladding |
| past participle | clad |
| past | clad |
| past participle | cladded |
| past | cladded |
Origin of clad
From Middle English clad, cladde, cled(e), cledde, past tense and past participle forms of clethen (“(also figurative) to put clothing on, clothe, dress; to provide clothing to; to arm, equip; to cover, envelop; to conceal; to adorn”), from Old English clǣþan (past tense clǣþde, *clædde), from Proto-West Germanic *klaiþijan, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gleh₁y-, *gley- (“to adhere, cling, stick to”).
From Middle English clad(d), cladde, clade, past tense and past participle forms of clathen, clothen (“to put clothing on, clothe, dress”), from *clāþian (“to clothe”) (past participle ġeclāded, ġeclaþed, ġeclaþod), from clāþ, clǣþ (“cloth; (plural) clothes”); see further at etymology 1.
Apparently derived from clad (adjective); see etymology 2. Uses of clad as the simple past and past participle form of clad are indistinguishable from uses of the word as the simple past and past participle form of clothe.
Words formed from clad
Phrases with clad
Words that rhyme with clad
Questions about clad
- What does clad mean?
- Clad means wearing clothing or some other covering (for example, an armour) on the body; clothed, dressed.
- What is clad the simple past and past participle of?
- Clad is the simple past and past participle of clothe.
- What part of speech is clad?
- Clad can be an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce clad?
- Clad is pronounced /klæd/ (UK).
Words near clad in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: clad (page history and authors); clothe (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-clad.wav.
Cite this entry: “clad.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clad. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.