cloud

Etymology

From Middle English cloud, from Old English clūd (“mass of stone, rock, boulder, hill”), 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 Middle English wolken, from Old English wolcn (whence Modern English welkin), the commonest Germanic word (compare Dutch wolk, German Wolke).

noun

1. (obsolete) A rock; boulder; a hill.
2. A visible mass of water droplets suspended in the air.
3. Any mass of dust, steam or smoke resembling such a mass.
   Since the mid-1980s, when Indonesia first began to clear its bountiful forests on an industrial scale in favour of lucrative palm-oil plantations, “haze” has become an almost annual occurrence in South-East Asia. The cheapest way to clear logged woodland is to burn it, producing an acrid cloud of foul white smoke that, carried by the wind, can cover hundreds, or even thousands, of square miles. 2013-06-29, “Unspontaneous combustion”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 29
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.
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.
    Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet. 2013-06-14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18
11. (figurative) A negative or foreboding aspect of something positive: see every cloud has a silver lining or every silver lining has a cloud.
    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. 1798, Eleanor Sleath, The Orphan of the Rhine
    The only cloud on their night was that injury to Rafael, who was followed off the pitch by his anxious brother Fabio as he was stretchered away down the tunnel. January 25, 2011, Phil McNulty, “Blackpool 2-3 Man Utd”, in BBC
12. (slang) Crystal methamphetamine.
13. A large, loosely-knitted headscarf worn by women.

verb

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.
   The horses stamping Their warm breath clouding In the sharp and frosty morning Of the day. 1972, “Thick As A Brick”, Ian Anderson (lyrics), performed by Jethro Tull
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.
7. (transitive) To blacken; to sully; to stain; to tarnish (reputation or character).
8. (transitive) To mark with, or darken in, veins or sports; to variegate with colors.
   to cloud yarn
9. (intransitive) To become marked, darkened or variegated in this way.