cloud

noun clouds · cloude · clowd

1. A visible mass of water droplets suspended in the air. While he thus ſpake, there came a cloud, and ouerſhadowed them, ⁊ they feared, as they entred into the cloude.
2. 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 fo
3. Anything reminiscent of a cloud. The ship moved forward under a cloud of sail.
4. Anything which makes things foggy, unclear or gloomy. But in one part of the horizon a cloud lay, and the rulers of India were oppressed with a sense of coming disaster. This cloud had begun to form in 1873, and had been continually growing larger; it threw a shadow over gold-debtor nations, and shed a depressing influence over gold-using countries.
5. figuratively Anything unsubstantial.
6. A dark spot on a lighter material or background.
7. collective A group or swarm of insects, various animals or people, especially when 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. with definite article 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
11. figuratively 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.
12. slang Crystal methamphetamine.
13. A large, loosely-knitted headscarf worn by women.
14. Internet, endearing, humorous A white cat.
15. obsolete A rock; boulder; a hill.

Similar: cloud

verb clouds · clouding · clouded · cloude · clowd

1. intransitive To become foggy or gloomy, or obscured from sight. The glass clouds when you breathe on it.

   Similar: fog, gloom

2. transitive To overspread or hide with a cloud or clouds. The sky is clouded.

   Similar: becloud

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.

   Similar: fog, mist

4. transitive To make obscure. All this talk about human rights is clouding the real issue.

   Similar: becloud, bedarken, bedim, fog

5. transitive To make less acute or perceptive. Your emotions are clouding your judgement.
6. transitive To make gloomy or sullen. One day too late, I fear me, noble lord, Hath clouded all thy happy days on earth.

   Similar: begloom, engloom

7. transitive To blacken; to sully; to stain; to tarnish (reputation or character). I would not be a stander-by to hear My sovereign mistress clouded so, without My present vengeance taken.

   Similar: besmirch, denigrate, stain, assassinate, asperse, backbite, badmouth, befoul, belibel, besmear, bewray, blacken

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.

proper noun Clouds

1. countable, uncountable An Amerind surname from meteorology
2. countable, uncountable A surname from the Germanic languages
3. countable, uncountable A surname from English, variant of Cloude

   Similar: Cloude, Clowd, Clowde, de la Cloude

4. countable, uncountable A placename
5. abbreviation, countable, ellipsis, uncountable Ellipsis of Cloud County