CLOTH  , properly a covering, especially for the See also:

• BODY

body, clothing, then the material of which such a covering is made; hence any material See also:

• WOVEN

woven of See also:

• WOOL, WORSTED AND WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES

wool or See also:

• HAIR (a word common to Teutonic languages)

hair, See also:

• COTTON
• COTTON (Fr. coton; from Arab. qutun)
• COTTON, CHARLES (163o–1687)
• COTTON, GEORGE EDWARD LYNCH (1813–1866)
• COTTON, JOHN (1585–1652)
• COTTON, SIR ROBERT BRUCE

cotton, See also:

• FLAX

flax or See also:

• VEGETABLE

vegetable fibre . In commercial usage, the word is particularly applied to a fabric made of wool . The word is See also:

• TEUTONIC
• TEUTONIC (GERMANIC) LANGUAGES

Teutonic, though it does not appear in all the branches of the See also:

• LANGUAGE (adapted from the Fr. langage, from langue, tongue, Lat. lingua)

language . It appears in See also:

• GERMAN
• GERMAN, DUTCH AND SCANDINAVIAN

German as Kleid, See also:

• DRESS (from the Fr. dresser, to set out, arrange, formed from Lat. directus, arranged, dirigere, to direct, arrange)

dress (Kleidung, clothing), and in Dutch as kleed . The ultimate origin is unknown; it may be ,connected with the See also:

• ROOT (late O.E. rot, adopted from Scand., cf. Norw. and Swed. rot, Dan. rod; the true O.E. word was wyrt, plant, represented in Ger. Wurz or Wurzel; the ultimate root is the same in both words, and is seen in Lat. radix)
• ROOT, ELIHU (1845– )

root kli- meaning to stick, cling to, which appears in " See also:

• CLAY (from O. Eng. claeg, a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages, cf. Ger. Klei)
• CLAY, CASSIUS MARCELLUS (1810-1903)
• CLAY, CHARLES (1801–1893)
• CLAY, FREDERIC (1838–1889)
• CLAY, HENRY (1777–1852)

clay," " cleave " and other words . The See also:

• ORIGINAL

original meaning would be either that which clings to the body, or that which is pressed or " felted " together . The See also:

• REGULAR

regular plural of " cloth " was " clothes," which is now confined in meaning to articles of clothing, garments, in which sense the singular " cloth " is not now used . For that word, in its See also:

• MODERN

modern sense of material, the plural " cloths " is used . This See also:

• FORM (Lat. forma)

form See also:

• DATES

dates from the beginning of the 17th See also:

• CENTURY (from Lat. centuria, a division of a hundred men)

century, but the distinction in meaning between cloths " and " clothes " is a 19th-century one .