Word.ws English Dictionary

sackcloath

sackcloath is the obsolete form of sackcloth.

Meaning of sackcloth

Noun

sackcloth (countable and uncountable, plural sackcloths)

  1. A coarse hessian style of cloth used to make sacks.
  2. (also, figuratively, usually) Garments worn as an act of penance.
    • After he realised the gravity of his crime he spent some time wearing sackcloth and ashes.
    Synonyms:
    hairshirt, cilice

Forms of sackcloath

pluralsackcloaths

Questions about sackcloath

What is sackcloath the obsolete form of?
Sackcloath is the obsolete form of sackcloth.

Words near sackcloath in the dictionary

  1. sackbuts
  2. sackbutt
  3. sackbuttist
  4. sackbuttists
  5. sackbutts
  6. sackcloath
  7. sackcloaths
  8. sackcloth
  9. sackclothed
  10. sackcloths
  11. sacked

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sackcloath (page history and authors); sackcloth (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “sackcloath.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sackcloath. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.