cloth
/klɒθ/noun
cloth is spelled C-L-O-T-H: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 11 times per million words in written English, the 6,784th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “cloth vs clothes” about 10 times a month (Bing, United States). As a noun, cloth means “A fabric, usually made of woven, knitted, or felted fibres or filaments, such as used in dressing, decorating, cleaning or other practical use.…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of cloth is cloths; Wiktionary also lists clothes (obsolete).
How many letters and syllables are in cloth?
| Letters | 5: C-L-O-T-H |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 11 times per million words; the 6,784th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is cloth?
Cloth appears 11 times per million words in written English, the 6,784th 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).
How do you pronounce cloth?
- UK /klɒθ/
- UK /klɔːθ/
- British /klɔθ/
Cloth 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: En-us-cloth.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with cloth
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with cloth?
2 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as cloth from its last stressed vowel (/ɒθ/, British pronunciation):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of cloth
- cloths plural
- clath
- clathe
- claith
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does cloth mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
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.
Near-synonyms: (not always differentiated) fabric, material (fabric sense), textile; see also Thesaurus:fabric
- 2
Specifically, a tablecloth, especially as spread before a meal or removed afterwards.
- 3
A piece of cloth used for a particular purpose.
- 4
Substance or essence; the whole of something complex.
- 5
Appearance; seeming.
- 6
A form of attire that represents a particular profession or status.
- 7
The priesthood.
He is a respected man of the cloth.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Cloth in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | tissu, étoffe , tenue |
| German | Stoff, Tuch , Lappen |
| Portuguese | pano, tecido |
| Spanish | tela , pedazo de tela, trozo de tela, trapo, paño, contray |
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 cloth come from?
From Middle English cloth, clath, from Old English clāþ (“cloth, clothes, covering, sail”), from Proto-West Germanic *klaiþ, 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”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).