padding

PAD-ing/ˈpædɪŋ/

Pluralpaddings (some meanings)

8 meanings of padding

Practice

1
noununcountable
Soft material used to fill cushions, jackets, and other things to make them comfortable.
Like the soft stuffing inside a teddy bear that makes it squishy.
The old armchair has lost most of its padding.
She added extra padding to the dog's bed.
Similarstuffing, filling, wadding, cushioning, batting
2
noununcountable
Extra words or things added just to fill space, with no real value.
Like adding water to soup to make a small amount look like more.
His essay was full of padding to reach the word count.
Cut the padding and keep only the important points.
Similarfiller, fluff, waffle, verbiage
Oppositesubstance
Note
3
noununcountable
Extra characters, like spaces, added to data to make it a set length.
Like adding blank pages so a thin booklet reaches a set thickness.
The program adds padding so every line is the same length.
Without padding, the file would be too short to read correctly.
Similarfiller
Note
4
verb
Present participle of pad. Use this form for the action happening right now.
She is padding the envelope with bubble wrap before mailing it.
He keeps padding his story with details that nobody needs.
Note
5
noununcountable
Extra text added to a message to hide where it starts, where it ends, or how long it is.
Like wrapping a small gift in a big box so no one can guess its size.
The spies added padding so no one could guess the message length.
Each coded note ended with padding to hide its real size.
Note
6
nouncountable or uncountable
A diaper, or the soft cloth pad a baby wears to stay dry.
The nurse changed the baby's padding twice during the night.
He bought soft padding for the newborn before they came home.
Similarnappy, diaper, napkin
Note
7
noununcountable
The step of treating cloth with a chemical so that dye will hold and not wash out.
Like wetting paper before painting so the color soaks in and stays.
The padding helped the bright red dye stay in the cloth.
Workers finished the padding before adding any color to the fabric.
Similarmordanting
Note

Less common meaning

8
nounobsoleteuncountable
The crime of robbing travelers out on a road.
Like robbing someone, but out on an open road instead of in a town.
The gang made their living by padding on the north road.
He was hanged for padding near the old toll gate.
Note

padding is a form of pad

pad, verb: To make something bigger by adding extra parts that are not needed. Full entry

Forms: padpads he/she/itpadding -ing formpadded past tense, past participle
Spelling: pad → padding: double the d, add -ing

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of padding apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origins

Meaning 4

It comes from the word "pad" plus "-ing".

Meanings 1–3, 5–8

It comes from the word "pad" plus "-ing".