The Unlikely Etymology of Cloud

File Under: you can’t make this stuff up! While today in Modern English we think of clouds as light, ethereal, fluffy, the etymology of the word tells a different story. The word cloud comes from the Anglo-Saxon word clud, a cognate for clod, meaning a rock or mass. Think about it: 800 or 1000 years ago in Northern England the presence of clouds in the sky was almost always a bad thing, as clouds often meant rain, cold, hard weather. Lacking the type of security we enjoy in warm, weather proof houses and the luxury of washing machines and indeed, changes of clothing, a cloud then was often the prelude to hardship. The clouds resembled rocks or giant masses floating in the sky, and the association with heaviness and hardship is hard not to see.

The scientific words for clouds are no more complicated and are divided into three main groups: the cumulus clouds (cumuliform) pictured here take their name from the Latin word cumulus, meaning a pile or heap. Cirrus (cirriform) clouds are named for their resemblace to a wispy tuft of hair. Stratus (stratiform) clouds are low and wide and resemble a sheet. Alto simply means high and nimbus is simply the Latin word for cloud. Meteorologists mix and combine the words to describe the clouds: altostratus, cumulo-nimbus. You get the idea! 

Shout out to Mr. James Maloney and his Severn School Science Class, currently studying clouds and meteorology (now there is an etymology!), whom I had the pleasure of meeting last night.

Image of Clouds courtesy Christopher Ba, used with permission under a Creative Commons 3.0 license.