cleat

English

Etymology

From Middle English clete, from Old English *clēat, clēot, 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. See also clay and clout.

Pronunciation

• enPR: klēt, IPA^(key): /kliːt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːt

Noun

cleat (plural cleats)

1. A strip of wood or iron fastened on transversely to something in order to give strength, prevent warping, hold position, etc.
   • 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:

     [...] 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.

   • 1995, Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures, page 6:

     I had learned that cattle willingly walk down a ramp that has cleats to provide secure, nonslip footing.

2. A continuous metal strip, or angled piece, used to secure metal components.
3. (nautical) A device to quickly affix a line or rope, and from which it is also easy to release.

   

   Nautical cleat

   Coordinate terms: (larger) bitt, bollard

4. A protrusion on the bottom of a shoe or wheel meant for better traction.
5. An athletic shoe equipped with cleats.
   • 2020, Allyssa Loya, Sporty Bugs and Errors, page 26:

     He needs to put on five pieces of gear: his helmet, left glove, right glove, left cleat, and right cleat.

Derived terms

• expansion cleat
• French cleat

Translations

device to secure a rope

• Bulgarian: кнехт m (kneht)
• Czech: rohatinka (cs) f, vazák m
• Dutch: klamp (nl), kikker (nl) m
• Finnish: knaapi, knaappi, köysipidin
• French: taquet (fr)
• German: Klampe (de) f
• Icelandic: krussholt n, klampi m
• Italian: galloccia f
• Norwegian: kryssholt
• Ottoman Turkish: ماندال (mandal)
• Polish: knaga (pl)
• Portuguese: grampo (pt), malagueta (pt) f
• Russian: у́тка (ru) f (útka), крепительная у́тка f (krepitelʹnaja útka)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: би̏тва f

  Roman: bȉtva (sh) f

• Spanish: cornamusa (es) f
• Swedish: knap (sv) c
• Ukrainian: кнага f (knaha)

protrusion on the bottom of a shoe

• Bulgarian: кабър m (kabǎr)
• Czech: kolík (cs) m
• Dutch: nop (nl)
• Finnish: nappula (fi)
• French: crampon (fr) m
• German: Stollen (de) m
• Hungarian: ^{(please verify)} stopli (hu)
• Norman: tatchet m
• Portuguese: trava (pt) f
• Romanian: crampon (ro) n
• Russian: шип (ru) m (šip)
• Spanish: suela (es) f
• Swedish: dobb c (on sports shoes), dubb (sv) c

athletic shoe equipped with cleats

• Portuguese: chuteira (pt) f

Verb

cleat (third-person singular simple present cleats, present participle cleating, simple past and past participle cleated)

1. To strengthen with a cleat.

   Hypernym: reinforce

   Coordinate terms: gusset, rib

2. (nautical) To tie off, affix, stopper a line or rope, especially to a cleat.

   Coordinate term: moor

Anagrams

• CELTA, Cleta, eclat, ectal, éclat