coated

1. 1
   adjective

   Covered with a thin layer of some material on the surface.

   The coated tablets dissolve slowly once they reach the stomach.

   She bought a frying pan with a coated base that nothing sticks to.

   Similarcovered, lined, glazed

   Oppositeuncoated, bare

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of coat.

   The factory coated each bolt with a thin layer of zinc.

   He coated the wooden table with varnish to protect it.

   Note

   A regular past form built with -ed, and always transitive: something is coated with a material. The same spelling doubles as the adjective for covered surfaces, so a passive such as the pan was coated with enamel can read as an action or as a description. The verb's archaic meaning 'to clothe' is the sense behind the 'wearing a coat' adjective.

3. 3
   adjective

   Dressed in or wearing a coat.

   A heavily coated figure waited at the bus stop in the rain.

   The coated mourners gathered silently beside the grave.

   Similarbundled, wrapped, muffled, clad

   Oppositecoatless

   Note

   Much of its work happens in compounds, where a color comes first. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) remembers an old brown-coated man, and The Practical Dental Journal (1908) has a white-coated man holding a shiny instrument. Hyphenate such compounds before a noun. Standing alone, as in the coated woman, it can briefly suggest the thin-layer meaning, so a modifier makes the clothing reading unmistakable.

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