cloth
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "cloth", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "cloth" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "cloth" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
cloth is aEnglishnoun. It means: A fabric, usually made of woven, knitted, or felted fibres or filaments, such as used in dressing, decorating, cleaning or other practical use. Sometimes, woven fabric specifically. Pronounced /klɒθ/. It ranks #6,772 in English word frequency. Often confused with cot and cote.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cloth |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /klɒθ/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #6,772 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cloth is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /klɒθ/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,772 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for cloth, with forms such as "ccloth", "clloth", and "cloht". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "cot", "cote", "cloud", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English cloth, clath, from Old English clāþ (“cloth, clothes, covering, sail”), from Proto-Germanic *klaiþą (“garment”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *gleyt- (“to cling to, cleave, stick”) (compare Albanian ngjit (“to stick, attach, glue”)),… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is cloth, spelled C-L-O-T-H, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A fabric, usually made of woven, knitted, or felted fibres or filaments, such as used in dressing, decorating, cleaning or other practical use. Sometimes, woven fabric specifically.
- 2Specifically, a tablecloth, especially as spread before a meal or removed afterwards.
- 3A piece of cloth used for a particular purpose.
- 4Substance or essence; the whole of something complex.
- 5Appearance; seeming.
- 6A form of attire that represents a particular profession or status.
- 7The priesthood.
Etymology
From Middle English cloth, clath, from Old English clāþ (“cloth, clothes, covering, sail”), from Proto-Germanic *klaiþą (“garment”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *gleyt- (“to cling to, cleave, stick”) (compare Albanian ngjit (“to stick, attach, glue”)), a form of *gleh₁y- (“to smear; to stick”). Cognate with Scots clath (“cloth”), North Frisian klaid (“dress, garment”), Saterland Frisian Klood (“dress, apparel”), West Frisian kleed (“cloth, article of clothing”), Dutch kleed (“robe, dress”), Low German kleed (“dress, garment”), German Kleid (“gown, dress”), Danish klæde (“cloth, dress”), Norwegian klede, Swedish kläde (“cloth”), Icelandic klæði (“cloth, dressing”), Old English clīþan (“to adhere, stick”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccloth,clloth,cloht,clothh,clotth,cltoh,colth,lcoth
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for cloth
Misspelling Variants of "cloth"
Frequency rank: #6,772 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: