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cleat

/kliːt/noun, verb

cleat is a noun meaning “A strip of wood or iron fastened on transversely to something in order to give strength, prevent warping, hold position, etc” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-L-E-A-T and has one syllable, and it appears about once in every 4 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of cleat is cleats.

What does cleat mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A strip of wood or iron fastened on transversely to something in order to give strength, prevent warping, hold position, etc.

  2. 2

    A continuous metal strip, or angled piece, used to secure metal components.

  3. 3

    A device to quickly affix a line or rope, and from which it is also easy to release.

  4. 4

    A protrusion on the bottom of a shoe or wheel meant for better traction.

    Near-synonym: calk

  5. 5

    An athletic shoe equipped with cleats.

verb

  1. 1

    To strengthen with a cleat.

  2. 2

    To tie off, affix, stopper a line or rope, especially to a cleat.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce cleat?

  • /kliːt/

Cleat has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-cleat.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of cleat

  • cleats plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • cleating participle, present
  • cleated participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is cleat?

Cleat appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 61,481st most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Cleat in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchtaquet (device to secure a rope), crampon (protrusion on the bottom of a shoe)
GermanKlampe (device to secure a rope), Stollen (protrusion on the bottom of a shoe)
Portuguesegrampo, malagueta (device to secure a rope), trava (protrusion on the bottom of a shoe), chuteira (athletic shoe equipped with cleats)
Spanishcornamusa (device to secure a rope), suela, taco, tapón, toperol, cala (protrusion on the bottom of a shoe)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does cleat come from?

From Middle English clete, from Old English *clēat (“block, wedge”), from Proto-West Germanic *klaut, from Proto-Germanic *klautaz (“firm lump”), from Proto-Indo-European *gelewd-, from *gley- (“to glue, stick together, form into a ball”). Cognate with Dutch kloot (“ball; testicle”) and German Kloß (“clump”). See also clay and clout.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).