Meaning

noun a covering designed to be worn on a person's body

verb provide with clothes or put clothes on

verb furnish with power or authority; of kings or emperors

originFrom Middle English clothing, clathing; equivalent to clothe + -ing. Cognate with Scots cleeding, cleiding, cleading (“clothing”), Dutch kleding (“clothing”), German Kleidung (“clothing”), Danish klædning (“clothing, dress, attire”), Swedish klädning (“dress”). Doublet of the dialectal English term cleading, from Middle English clething; compare also cladding.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0