Noun: cleat
| Singular | cleat |
| Plural | cleats |
Sample Sentences
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[...] the people of that island erected lofty spars along the seacoast, to which the look-outs ascended by means of nailed cleats, something as fowls go upstairs in a hen-house. [1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 35”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:]
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I had learned that cattle willingly walk down a ramp that has cleats to provide secure, nonslip footing. [1995, Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures, page 6:]
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Near-synonym: calk
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He needs to put on five pieces of gear: his helmet, left glove, right glove, left cleat, and right cleat. [2020, Allyssa Loya, Sporty Bugs and Errors, page 26:]
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Italy, which lifted the trophy for the fourth time in Berlin two decades ago, has been spiraling downward ever since. The Azzurri didn’t survive their group in 2010 and 2014 and haven’t qualified since. This time the Norwegians, known more for their skill on skis than in cleats, beat them twice in group play by a combined 7-1. Then the Italians lost the playoff to Bosnia-Herzegovina on penalty kicks. Even with a swollen field, just getting here is an accomplishment. [2026 June 21, John Powers, “The World Cup group stage was supposed to be a feeding frenzy. So far, not so much.”, in The Boston Globe, retrieved 21 Jun 2026:]
Nouns inflected like cleat
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English clete, from Old English *clēat (“block, wedge”), from Proto-West Germanic *klaut, from Proto-Germanic *klautaz (“firm lump”), from Proto-Indo-European *gelewd-, from *gley- (“to glue, stick together, form into a ball”). Cognate with Dutch kloot (“ball; testicle”) and German Kloß (“clump”). See also clay and clout. See: Middle English Nouns '
clete', Dutch Nouns '
kloot', German Nouns '
Kloß'.
Verbs referencing "cleat"
Swedish Nouns
klot, Dutch Nouns
kloot, German Nouns
Kloß.