clothes

1. 1
   what you wearnounplural

   Items worn to cover the body, such as shirts, pants, dresses, and coats.

   He hung his soaked clothes near the fire to dry.

   The store sells affordable clothes for growing children.

   UsageFor one thing, say a piece of clothing or an item of clothing (not incorrect: a clothe). The verb is are: my clothes are wet.

2. 2
   dresses peopleverb

   Third-person singular simple present of clothe.

   The organization clothes and feeds refugees arriving at the border.

   He clothes himself in simple robes every morning.

   UsageTakes an object, often with in: the charity clothes families; mist clothes the hills in gray.

   Note

   A verb form, formed apart from the noun, though the verb clothe is itself related to cloth. It is clothe plus the ordinary -s, a separate word from the old plural of cloth behind the word for garments.

3. 3
   beddingnounplural

   The sheets, blankets, and other coverings used on a bed.

   She turned each way her frighted head, / Then sunk it deep beneath the clothes.

   1717, Matthew Prior, The Dove

   Similarcovers, bedding, sheets, bedclothes

   Note

   Here the bed supplies the meaning, and the word needs that setting to be understood. When Matthew Prior's poem The Dove has a frightened head sunk "deep beneath the clothes", the scene makes clear these are sheets and blankets, not garments. Where no bed is in view, bedclothes is the form that cannot be misread. Source

   Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

   • Matthew Prior wrote the poem The Dove. eighteenthcenturypoetry.org
   • The poem describes a frightened head sinking "deep beneath the clothes". en.wiktionary.org
   • The scene concerns bed coverings. eighteenthcenturypoetry.org

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