Clouding

cloud  (kloud)

n.

1.

a. A visible body of very fine water droplets or ice particles suspended in the atmosphere at altitudes ranging up to several miles above sea level.

b. A mass, as of dust, smoke, or steam, suspended in the atmosphere or in outer space.

2. A large moving body of things in the air or on the ground; a swarm: a cloud of locusts.

3. Something that darkens or fills with gloom.

4. A dark region or blemish, as on a polished stone.

5. Something that obscures.

6. Suspicion or a charge affecting a reputation.

7. A collection of charged particles: an electron cloud.

v. cloud·ed, cloud·ing, clouds

v.tr.

1. To cover with or as if with clouds: Mist clouded the hills.

2. To make gloomy or troubled.

3. To obscure: cloud the issues.

4. To cast aspersions on; sully: Scandal clouded the officer's reputation.

v.intr.

To become cloudy or overcast: The sky clouded over.

Idiom:

in the clouds

1. Imaginary; unreal; fanciful.

2. Impractical.

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[Middle English, hill, cloud, from Old English cld, rock, hill.]

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cloudless adj.

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

clouding - the process whereby water particles become visible in the sky clouding up evaporation, vaporisation, vaporization, vapour, vapor - the process of becoming a vapor