clothing
- 01 A2 Elementary
items like shirts, trousers, and dresses that you wear to cover your body.
garments collectively; articles of dress used to cover the human body for protection, modesty, or adornment.
Simple“You should pack warm clothing if you are going to the mountains.”
In context“The charity provides protective clothing and sturdy boots to workers in the most affected regions.”
UsageUsually uncountable; it does not take a plural 's' in general usage.
PitfallI bought many clothings for my holiday. I bought many clothes for my holiday.Clothing is usually uncountable. Use 'clothes' or 'items of clothing' when you want to talk about individual pieces.
- 02 C2 Proficiency
a layer of material used to cover a machine or boiler to keep heat inside.
a covering of non-conducting material applied to the exterior of a boiler or steam chamber to prevent heat loss.
Simple“The engineer checked the clothing on the boiler to ensure it was still safe.”
In context“The thermal clothing surrounding the steam pipes had degraded over time, leading to a significant drop in energy efficiency.”
UsageUsed in engineering and thermodynamics contexts.
Synonyms
clothing vs cloth vs clothes — Cloth is the raw fabric, clothes are the specific items you wear, and clothing is the general category or industry term.
From Middle English clothing, clathing; equivalent to clothe + -ing. Cognate with Scots cleeding, cleiding, cleading (“clothing”), Dutch kleding (“clothing”), German Kleidung (“clothing”), Danish klædning (“clothing, dress, attire”), Swedish klädning (“dress”). Doublet of the dialectal English term cleading, from Middle English clething; compare also cladding.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.