An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Kleid

by Friedrich Kluge

Kleid, neuter, ‘dress,’ from the equivalent Middle High German kleit (genitive kleides), neuter; wanting in Old High German till the middle of the 12th century; hence the word is supposed to be borrowed from Dutch kleed. Unknown originally to Old Saxon also, as well as to Gothic and several Anglo-Saxon records (Anglo-Saxon clâþ, neuter, ‘cloth, dress,’ English cloth; Old Icelandic klœ́þi, masculine, ‘stuff, cloth, dress’). The history of the word, which is more widely diffused in the modern Teutonic languages, is obscure on account of the want of early references and the divergence of the earliest recorded forms, AS clûþ, neuter, and Old Icelandic klœ́ði, neuter (the latter too has an abnormal â instead of ei for the Teutonic oi). If the dental of Anglo-Saxon clâþ be regarded as derivative (Gothic *klai-þa), we may infer from the Anglo-Saxon and Old Icelandic meaning ‘stuff, cloth’ (Anglo-Saxon cildclâþ, properly ‘child's clothes,’ with the special sense ‘swaddling cloth’), a root klai signifying perhaps ‘to weave.’