What does cloth mean?
Cloth is a noun referring to woven, knitted, or felted fabric produced from natural fibres such as wool, cotton, silk, and linen, or from synthetic materials. It denotes the raw material of textile-making rather than finished articles: a tailor works with cloth, while the resulting shirt is a garment. In everyday usage, cloth also commonly means a single piece of fabric put to a practical purpose, as in a dish cloth, cleaning cloth, or polishing cloth. Used uncountably, it names substance in bulk ('buying three yards of cloth'); used countably, it names distinct pieces ('several soft cloths'). Its figurative reach is notable: to say two people are 'cut from the same cloth' suggests shared character or origin, an image drawn literally from tailors slicing multiple garments from one length of fabric. Distinguished from 'clothes' — which are worn garments — cloth remains a foundational word in both domestic and industrial English.
A woven or felted fabric made from natural or synthetic fibres, used especially for making garments and household items.
"The merchant displayed bolts of fine silk cloth imported from the East."
Uncountable when naming the material generally; countable when referring to individual pieces of fabric.
A piece of fabric used for a specific domestic purpose, such as cleaning, wiping, or covering.
"He polished the silver with a soft cloth until it gleamed."
'Cloths' means separate pieces of fabric and should not be confused with 'clothes', which means garments worn on the body. As a mass noun, cloth often takes no plural at all ('a roll of cloth').
"Keep several lint-free cloths in the workshop for wiping down tools."
"Cut from the same cloth" doesn't just mean similar people — it's a literal leftover from tailoring days, when two suits really were cut from one bolt.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of cloth
Cloth derives from Old English clāþ, meaning cloth or garment, which traces back through Proto-Germanic roots shared with related words for woven material and clothing. It has cognates across the Germanic languages, including German Kleid (garment) and Dutch kleed. From this same Old English source descend its direct derivatives: the verb 'to clothe' (Old English clāþian), the plural-derived noun 'clothes', the abstract 'clothing', and the occupational 'clothier'. The word's core meaning — woven material — has remained remarkably stable for over a thousand years.
Related word forms
How cloth is actually used
Cloth is an uncountable noun when referring to fabric in general ('three metres of cloth') but can be countable when referring to individual pieces ('a cleaning cloth', 'two cloths'). The plural 'cloths' refers to separate pieces of fabric, never to garments — that sense belongs to 'clothes'.
Easily confused with cloth
Clothes refers to garments worn on the body, while cloth is the raw fabric itself.
Clothe is a verb meaning to dress someone or provide them with garments; cloth is a noun denoting fabric.