Other forms: cloths
Cloth is woven material that shirts and curtains are made from. A piece of cloth, cotton cloth, a damp cloth.
It is uncountable for the material and countable for a piece of it — a cloth for wiping. The plural cloths means pieces and clothes means garments, which is why the two spellings and sounds differ. Note that the cloth, with the article, means the clergy, from the dress.
1nounclothWoven material used for garments and furnishings.
“The dress was made from a fine red cloth she bought at the market.”
2nounwipingA piece of material for wiping.
“She spilt her juice, so I grabbed a cloth from the sink.”
cloth is a material.
Also accepted in games: fabric
Old English clath means cloth or a garment, from a Germanic root. Clothe and clothes come from the same word.
Proto-Indo-European
*gleyt- — to cling to, cleave, stick
Proto-Germanic
*klaiþą — garment
Proto-West Germanic
*klaiþ
Old English
clāþ — cloth, clothes, covering, sail
Middle English
cloth
English, today
cloth
Built from
From Middle English cloth, clath, from Old English clāþ (“cloth, clothes, covering, sail”), from Proto-West Germanic klaiþ, from Proto-Germanic klaiþą (“garment”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European gleyt- (“to cling to, cleave, stick”) (compare Albanian ngjit (“to stick, attach, glue”)), a form of gleh₁y- (“to smear; to stick”). Cognate with Scots clath (“cloth”), frr klaid (“dress, garment”), stq Klood (“dress, apparel”), West Frisian klaad, kleed (“cloth, article of clothing”), Dutch kleed (“robe, dress”), Low German kleed (“dress, garment”), German Kleid (“gown, dress”), Danish klæde (“cloth, dress”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk klede, Swedish kläde (“cloth”), Icelandic klæði (“cloth, dressing”), Old English clīþan (“to adhere, stick”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA