From Middle English cloud, from Old English clūd, from Proto-West Germanic *klūt, from Proto-Germanic *klūtaz, *klutaz, from Proto-Indo-European *gel-.

Cognate with Scots clood, clud ("cloud"), Dutch kluit, nds-de Kluute, German Kloß, Danish klode, Swedish klot, Icelandic klót. Related to English clod, clot, clump, club. Largely replaced Middle English wolken, from Old English wolcn (whence Modern English welkin), the commonest Germanic word (compare Dutch wolk, German Wolke).

• (RP, America) enPR: kloud, IPA: /klaʊd/

cloud (plural clouds)

1. (obsolete) A rock; boulder; a hill.
2. A visible mass of water droplets suspended in the air.
   • 1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter IV, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC ↗:

     So this was my future home, I thought! […] Backed by towering hills, the but faintly discernible purple line of the French boundary off to the southwest, a sky of palest Gobelin flecked with fat, fleecy little clouds, it in truth looked a dear little city; the city of one's dreams.

3. Any mass of dust, steam or smoke resembling such a mass.
4. Anything which makes things foggy or gloomy.
5. (figurative) Anything unsubstantial.
6. A dark spot on a lighter material or background.
7. A group or swarm, especially suspended above the ground or flying.

   He opened the door and was greeted by a cloud of bats.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC ↗, Hebrews 12:1 ↗:

     so great a cloud of witnesses

   • 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC ↗:

     The place was horribly haunted by clouds of mosquitoes and every form of flying pest, so we were glad to find solid ground again and to make a circuit among the trees, which enabled us to outflank this pestilent morass, which droned like an organ in the distance, so loud was it with insect life.

8. An elliptical shape or symbol whose outline is a series of semicircles, supposed to resemble a cloud.

   The comic-book character's thoughts appeared in a cloud above his head.

9. A telecom network (from their representation in engineering drawings)
10. (computing, with "the") The Internet, regarded as an abstract amorphous omnipresent space for processing and storage, the focus of cloud computing.
11. (figuratively) A negative or foreboding aspect of something positive: see every cloud has a silver lining or every silver lining has a cloud.
    • 1798, Eleanor Sleath, The Orphan of the Rhine:

      But when he found that some of his interrogatories were evaded, and others answered undecisively, the look of gentleness which he had assumed, vanished, and his brow wore the cloud of disappointment and of anger.

12. (slang) Crystal methamphetamine.
13. A large, loosely-knitted headscarf worn by women.

see cloud/translations

cloud (clouds, present participle clouding; simple past and past participle clouded)

1. (intransitive) To become foggy or gloomy, or obscured from sight.

   The glass clouds when you breathe on it.

2. (transitive) To overspread or hide with a cloud or clouds.

   The sky is clouded.

3. Of the breath, to become cloud; to turn into mist.
4. (transitive) To make obscure.

   All this talk about human rights is clouding the real issue.

5. (transitive) To make less acute or perceptive.

   Your emotions are clouding your judgement.

   The tears began to well up and cloud my vision.

6. (transitive) To make gloomy or sullen.
   • 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene ii]:

     One day too late, I fear me, noble lord,
     Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book V”, 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 ↗:

     Be not disheartened, then, nor cloud those looks.

7. (transitive) To blacken; to sully; to stain; to tarnish (reputation or character).
   • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene ii]:

     I would not be a stander-by to hear
     My sovereign mistress clouded so, without
     My present vengeance taken.

8. (transitive) To mark with, or darken in, veins or sports; to variegate with colors.

   to cloud yarn

   • 1714, Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, […], published 1717, →OCLC ↗, canto IV:

     The nice conduct of a clouded cane

9. (intransitive) To become marked, darkened or variegated in this way.

• French: s'obscurcir
• Italian: annuvolarsi, oscurare, annebbiare
• Portuguese: enevoar
• Russian: затуманиться
• Spanish: nublar

• German: verschleiern
• Italian: oscurare
• Portuguese: obscurecer

1. Surname.