Obs. or arch. [app. educed from prec.] To CLOTHE, dress.
[a. 1300. Cursor M., 20362 (Cott.). Angels sal … kepe þe in al þi stat, And clad te, bath ar and lat.]
1579. Cyuile & Vncyuile Life (1868), 14. We clad them simply, to eschue pride.
1589. Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, I. xxiv. (Arb.), 63. Which was done … by cladding the mourners … in blacke vestures.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., VI. iv. 4. To clad his corpse with meete habiliments.
1636. E. Dacres, trans. Machiavel’s Disc. Livy, I. 213. Cladding himselfe with the ornaments belonging to his degree and quality.
1868. Morris, Earthly Par. (1870), I. II. 459. Find raiment meet To clad him with.
b. transf. To cover as with clothing.
1601. Holland, Pliny, I. 483. The leafe … embracing the Cane, doth clad it round about with certaine thin membranes.
1610. W. Folkingham, Art of Survey, I. ii. 38. Cloud-berries … clad the tops of Mountanous fells.
c. fig.
1579. Tomson, Calvin’s Serm. Tim., 95/1. He claddeth vs with his own glory.
1627–8. Feltham, Resolves (1677), I. lxxiii. When we haue to deal with such, we clad ourselues in their contraries.
