cloud

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   out of touch with reality

   Their head was in the clouds when they should have been focused on the task at hand.

2. 2
   noun

   suspicion affecting your reputation

   After that mistake, they were under a cloud.

3. 3
   noun

   a cause of worry or gloom or trouble

   the only cloud on the horizon was the possibility of dissent by the French

4. 4
   verb

   to make milky or dull

   The chemical clouded the liquid it was added to.

5. 5
   verb

   to make less clear

   The stroke clouded their memories.

6. 6
   verb

   to make gloomy or depressed

   Their faces were clouded with sadness.

7. 7
   verb

   to billow up in the form of a cloud

   The smoke clouded above the houses

8. 8
   verb

   to make less visible or unclear

   The stars are obscured by the clouds

Etymology

From Middle English cloud, from Old English clūd (“mass of stone, rock, boulder, hill”), from Proto-West Germanic *klūt, from Proto-Germanic *klūtaz, *klutaz (“lump, mass, conglomeration”), from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to ball up, clench”). Cognate with Scots clood, clud (“cloud”), Dutch kluit (“lump, mass, clod”), German Low German Kluut, Kluute (“lump, mass, ball”), German Kloß (“lump, ball, dumpling”), Danish klode (“sphere, orb, planet”), Swedish klot (“sphere, orb, ball, globe”), Icelandic klót (“knob on a sword's hilt”). Related to English clod, clot, clump, club. Largely replaced Mi…