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plaid

noun · adjective

Simple meaning

A type of twilled woollen cloth, often with a tartan or chequered pattern.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

plad
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈplæd

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. textiles

    A type of twilled woollen cloth, often with a tartan or chequered pattern.

  2. The typical chequered pattern of a plaid; tartan.

  3. A length of such material used as a piece of clothing, formerly worn in the Scottish Highlands and other parts of northern Britain and remaining as an item of ceremonial dress worn by members of Scottish pipe bands.

  4. Short for Plaid Cymru.

adjective

  1. Having a pattern or colors which resemble a Scottish tartan; checkered or marked with bars or stripes at right angles to one another.

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: (textiles) A type of twilled woollen cloth, often with a tartan or chequered pattern.

Used this way, plaid 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.

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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: having a pattern

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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.