Overclouding

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. The act of covering the sky with clouds to make it overcast or gloomy
2. Creating an overcast sky by producing a thick layer of clouds that blocks sunlight
3. The process of obscuring the sky by thickening cloud cover, reducing brightness

Etymology: "Overclouding" is the present participle and gerund of "overcloud," a verb built from "over-" and "cloud." Both parts are old native English material: "over" descends from Old English "ofer," which goes back to a Germanic root shared with many European languages, while "cloud" is also an Old English word, originally meaning a mass of rock or hill before it came to mean a bank of vapour in the sky. The verb itself is a straightforward formation. Its prefix "over-" carries the sense of covering or spreading across something from above, so to overcloud is to cover a sky or scene with cloud. The word is transparent in a way many English verbs are not: a reader can rebuild its meaning from the two parts alone, which is why it appears so readily in weather writing and in figurative uses about gloom or confusion.