Cloud

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /klaʊd/

Definitions

1. A visible mass of water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere, typically high above the ground
2. A collection of tiny water droplets or ice particles that float in the sky and can also refer to a digital storage space for data and information
3. A type of atmospheric formation that consists of condensed water vapor and can represent an abstract concept of storing information electronically

Etymology: The most surprising thing about "cloud" is that its original sense was solid, not airy. In Old English, "clūd" meant a mass of stone, a rock or a hill, and the sky sense came later. The root idea is a lump or ball: the same Proto-Germanic base gave a whole family of words for rounded, compact things, including "clod," "clot," "clump" and "club." The sky meaning is a transfer from the image of a heaped-up mass. A rounded billow of vapour looks like a lump piled in the air, so the word shifted from the solid heap on the ground to the heap above it. Its near relatives keep the older sense of lumps and balls. Dutch "kluit" means a lump or clod, German "Kloß" is a dumpling, and Swedish "klot" means a sphere or globe. The word did not always hold the sky to itself. English had an older word for the cloud-covered heavens, "welkin," from Old English "wolcn," which is the same root found in modern German "Wolke" and Dutch "wolk." "Cloud" largely replaced it in Middle English.

Synonyms: mist, fog, haze, vapor, shroud

Antonyms: clarity, brightness, sunshine, clear sky, brightness