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CLOTH

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 557 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CLOTH , properly a covering, especially for the See also:

body, clothing, then the material of which such a covering is made; hence any material See also:woven of See also:wool or See also:hair, See also:cotton, See also:flax or See also:vegetable fibre. In commercial usage, the word is particularly applied to a fabric made of wool. The word is See also:Teutonic, though it does not appear in all the branches of the See also:language. It appears in See also:German as Kleid, See also:dress (Kleidung, clothing), and in Dutch as kleed. The ultimate origin is unknown; it may be ,connected with the See also:root kli- meaning to stick, cling to, which appears in " See also:clay," " cleave " and other words. The See also:original meaning would be either that which clings to the body, or that which is pressed or " felted " together. The See also: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 sense of material, the plural " cloths " is used. This See also:form See also:dates from the beginning of the 17th See also:century, but the distinction in meaning between cloths " and " clothes " is a 19th-century one.

End of Article: CLOTH

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