To provide someone with clothing; to dress or cover with fabric.
From Old English 'clathian,' possibly related to 'clout' (cloth). The original meaning was to wrap in cloth, evolving to mean dressing someone or covering something in fabric.
The word 'clothe' is surprisingly old—it's used in the Bible and Shakespeare—but 'dress' and 'outfit' are more common now, showing how regular vocabulary gets replaced by simpler or trendier words over centuries.
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