padding

American  

[pad-ing] / ˈpæd ɪŋ /

noun

• paddings
  plural

1. material, as cotton or straw, used to pad something.

2. something added unnecessarily or dishonestly, as verbiage to a speech or a false charge on an expense account.

3. the act of a person or thing that pads.

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padding British  

/ ˈpædɪŋ /

noun

1. any soft material used to pad clothes, furniture, etc

2. superfluous material put into a speech or written work to pad it out; waffle

3. inflated or false entries in a financial account, esp an expense account

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• paddings
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of padding

First recorded in 1820–30; pad ¹ + -ing ¹

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Explanation

A cushioning or protective material is padding. When you're moving into a new apartment, you might want to wrap your dishes in padding to keep them from being damaged. Padding has many different uses, from the padding in a padded mailing envelope to the padding in a sofa cushion that gives you a soft place to sit. There's also padding inside protective sports gear and built into yoga mats. Sometimes padding is simply used to make something seem bigger, and from this meaning comes the sense of padding meaning "unnecessary extra material," especially superfluous words in a speech or a book.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

padding paddings

Arguably the damage might be less without all the padding, precisely because then your pain thresholds, and your bone fragility, limit how hard you can reasonably hit other players.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 30, 2026

Meanwhile, Sheppey United, in Kent, has a concrete supporting wall around two sides of its 3G pitch, which will be covered in padding.

From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2026

“Stranger Beauty” seems less a light in the cosmos than a model for padding out the page count.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026

And when one of us finally came padding down the wooden stairs, sleepy and rumpled and operating on a schedule she would never have personally endorsed, there was no reproach.

From Salon ● Aug. 31, 2026

The entire clan of the sphinxes followed behind, walking four abreast, padding on vast lion feet across the sand.

From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell

The freshly dead were still encased in woolen paddings or blue uniforms.

From Time Magazine Archive

Then there was the sound of crashing and of paddings, and abruptly the noise was diminishing as if its source were moving farther away.

From The Fifth-Dimension Tube by Murray Leinster

I have got rid of the trammels pretty well,—haven't I?—have unshackled myself, and thrown off the paddings, and the wrappings, and the swaddling clothes.

From He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope

The deep border of fur round the velvet, the warm waddings and paddings, the close fit up to the throat, were excellencies which warranted Janey's tour of inspection.

From Phoebe, Junior by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

The paddings of civilisation may be useful, yet Gilbert held more valuable a realisation of the realities of things.

From Gilbert Keith Chesterton by Maisie Ward

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