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coat

noun · verb

Simple meaning

Growth of hair or wool or fur covering the body of an animal.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

koht
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈkoʊt

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. Growth of hair or wool or fur covering the body of an animal

  2. countable

    The fur or feathers covering an animal's skin.

  3. countable

    A covering of material, such as paint.

  4. countableclothing

    An outer garment covering the upper torso and arms.

  5. The habit or vesture of an order of men, indicating the order or office; cloth.

  6. A coat of arms.

verb

  1. transitive

    To cover with a coating of some material.

  2. Cover or provide with a coat

  3. Put a coat on; cover the surface of; furnish with a surface

  4. transitive

    To cover like a coat.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Growth of hair or wool or fur covering the body of an animal

Used this way, coat is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use coat

  • “She hung her warm winter coat on the hook by the door.”

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Outer

frock coatcoat pocket

Other combinations

fur coatseed coatred coatwinter coattrench coatblack coat

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • coatingnounInflected form

    A thin layer covering something.

  • coatedadjectiveInflected form

    Having a coating.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • coat of armsnounCompound term

    The official symbols of a family, state, etc.

  • coat of mailnounCompound term

    Armor that protects the wearer's whole body.

  • coat-of-mail shellnounCompound term

    Primitive elongated bilaterally symmetrical marine mollusk having a mantle covered with eight calcareous plates.

  • coat of paintnounCompound term

    A layer of paint covering something else.

  • coat racknounCompound term

    A rack with hooks for temporarily holding coats and hats.

  • coat standnounCompound term

    An upright pole with pegs or hooks on which to hang clothing.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: to cover with a coating of some material

cake

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.