English
cloth
Cloth comes from Old English clāþ ‘cloth, clothes, covering, sail’, and goes back to Proto-Germanic *klaiþą ‘garment’.
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*klaiþą‘garment’reconstructed
- Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*klaiþreconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150clāþ‘cloth, clothes, covering, sail’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500cloth
- Englishearliest quotation 1798cloth
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*klaiþą‘garment’reconstructed
- Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*klaiþreconstructed
- Old Englishc. 450–1150clāþ‘cloth, clothes, covering, sail’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500cloth
- Englishearliest quotation 1798cloth
Earliest quotation: 1798, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, [Maria: or, The] Wrongs of Woman: “One day he came, as I thought accidentally, to…”.
The story
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’).
Linked words
through Old English clāþ ‘cloth, clothes, covering, sail’
Today it means
noun 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.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *klaiþą / cloth