clad meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

clad

adj

US, UK /klæd/

Etymology 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.

Of a person Wearing clothing or some other covering (for example, an armour) on the body; clothed, dressed.

Preceded by a garment type

[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:

4 more examples

Everything was lost in a scene from a movie in which khaki-clad regiments marched fast, fast across the scene.1921, John Dos Passos, Three Soldiers, Part One, New York: The Modern Library, published 1932, page 35:
The radical conservatives of the Jain monks were called “Digambara—the sky-clad.” They went about completely naked, or in other words, “clothed in space.”1964, Hajime Nakamura, “Alienation from the Objective Natural World”, in Philip P. Wiener, editor, Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples: India–China–Tibet–Japan, translator not credited, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, page 142:
There his chains would be removed and he would be ushered into the waiting-room for a five-minute chat with his wife surrounded on all sides by security men and civilian-clad prison warders.1981, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Detained: A Writer's Prison Diary, Section One, London: Heinemann, page 111:
Love brought between my sheets a laughing lad / One night. Eighteen years old, he was half-clad / Like a young boy: what a sweet dream!2001, Daryl, transl. Hine, chapter CXXV, in Puerilities: Erotic Epigrams of The Greek Anthology, Princeton University Press, page 59:

In compounds, Often, Of an object 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:

4 more examples

The sun has gone down, and the water has gone down / From the weed-clad rock, but the distant cloud-wall rises.1929, Robinson Jeffers, “Evening Ebb”, in The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, New York: Random House, published 1937, page 263:
[...] I can remember every volume among the three or four hundred books that made up the library of my father, the country doctor—three or four hundred besides those portentous leather-clad depositories of medical mystery filled with color plates depicting the awful intimacies of the innards;1941, Sinclair Lewis, “A Note on Book Collecting”, in The Man from Main Street, New York: Pocket Books, published 1963, page 101:
Copper and copper-clad steel resist corrosion indefinitely in soil that is relatively free from ammonia.1963, Harry L. Garver, “Lightning Protection for the Farm”, in Farmers' Bulletin, Issue 2136, U.S. Government, page 8:
The probe is constructed from plastic-clad silica fiber with an FPA Teflon jacket to prevent ambient light from being scattered into the system.1987, Sol M. Michaelson, James C. Lin, chapter 3, in Biological Effects and Health Implications of Radiofrequency Radiation, New York and London: Plenum Press, page 84:

Figuratively Adorned, ornamented.

Derived terms: beclad, black-clad, demiclad, heathclad, ironclad, mailclad, moonclad, multiclad, overclad, pineclad, reclad, scantily clad, semiclad, skyclad, snowclad, thinclad, timber-clad, timberclad, tinclad, tuxedo-clad, unclad, underclad

clad

verb

Etymology 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.

Archaic, Literary, Obsolete To clothe, to dress.

Past tense clad

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 I]:

4 more examples

But ſee the Sunne in ruſſet mantle clad, / Walkes ore the deaw of yon hie mountaine top, […]c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shake-speare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Valentine Simmes] for N[icholas] L[ing] and Iohn Trundell, published 1603, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
And it came to paſſe at that time when Jeroboam went out of Jeruſalem, that the Prophet Ahiiah the Shilonite found him in the way: and hee had clad himſelfe with a new garment; and they two were alone in the field.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Kings 11:29, column 1:
He alwaie claddeth yⁿ a blak Cote with Trunkhose o yᵉ lyke Colore, wi Shoos and Siller Buckels, a spuddish coroned Hatte, wi a Bruarte o muche brodeneſse, an tached vppe atte yᵉ Rear, wi a Cordige an Tassle.1660, “Walter Brockett, 1660”, in William A[nderson] Gunnell, compiler, Sketches of Hull Celebrities: Or Memoirs and Correspondence of Alderman Thomas Johnson, (Who was Twice Mayor of Kingston-upon-Hull.) And Four of His Lineal Descendants, from the Year 1640 to 1858. […], Hull, Yorkshire: […] Walker & Brown, […] [for] William Anderson Gunnell, […], published 1876, →OCLC, page 176:
Those to whom the King had entruſted me, obſerving how ill I was clad, ordered a Taylor to come next Morning, and take my Meaſure for a Suit of Clothes.1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Humours and Dispositions of the Laputians Described. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part III (A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdribb, Luggnagg, and Japan), page 23:

To cover with a cladding or another material (for example, insulation).

Past tense clad or cladded

[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, An Anthology of Elizabethan Dedications and Prefaces, Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, published 1933, →OCLC, page 115:
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 as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 313–316:

4 more examples

But on the pale moon Eve now fix'd her gaze, / „Behold”, she said, „how cold and pale its face, / „Now Abel’s house it claddeth with its ray, / „And shineth now above Cain’s lonely way.”1863, F[rederik] Paludan-Müller, “The Death of Abel”, in Mrs. Krebs, transl., A Few Poems Translated from the Danish, Copenhagen, Denmark: C. A. Reitzel, […], →OCLC, stanza V, page 24:
There, on a rock, he saw a little child. Naked she was, though clad with soft white moonlight.1896, Fiona Macleod [pseudonym; William Sharp], “[The Three Marvels of Hy] The Moon-child”, in Mrs. William Sharp [i.e., Elizabeth Sharp], editor, The Sin-eater, The Washer of the Ford and Other Legendary Moralities (The Writings of “Fiona Macleod”; 3), uniform edition, New York, N.Y.: Duffield & Company, published 1910, →OCLC, page 297:
Subsequently E. H. Dix, Jr., at Alcoa Research Laboratories established methods to metallurgically clad commercial aluminum to both sides of a 2017-T4 (then known as 17S-T) sheet to obtain outstanding corrosion protection[…].1972 October, B. W. Lifka, D. O. Sprowls, “Significance of Intergranular Corrosion in High-Strength Aluminum Alloy Products”, in Localized Corrosion—Cause of Metal Failure […] (ASTM Special Technical Publication; 516), Philadelphia, Pa.: American Society for Testing and Materials, published July 1981, →ISBN, page 122:
[T]he most effective materials at preventing oxygen diffusion are metals or ceramics of a thickness on the order of 1 millimeter or more. This type of coating may not be easily incorporated into the design or easily cladded to the polymer.1989, C[arole] A. Daniels, “Additives”, in Polymers: Structure and Properties, Lancaster, Pa.: Technomic Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 26, column 2:

Figuratively To imbue (with a specified quality); to envelop or surround.

Past tense clad

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 […], →OCLC:
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, →OCLC, act V, scene ii, page 117, lines 155–156:

2 more examples

The other day I was looking up some records of the Parliamentary Debates of the past, and I found my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee (Mr. [Dingle] Foot), who is now clad in all the majesty of a Minister and sits on the Treasury bench without regard to his murky past, moved a Motion on one of those pleasant Fridays to which I have referred, […]1943 May 26, Percy Harris, “Statutory Rules and Orders”, in Parliamentary Debates (Hansard): House of Commons Official Report (House of Commons of the United Kingdom), volume 389, London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 13 Jan 2021, column 1610:
He is one of those bulky men clad in sensitivity.1976, Saul Bellow, To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →ISBN, page 37:

Derived terms: cladded, cladder, cladding