coat
Americannoun
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coats
plural
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an outer garment with sleeves, covering at least the upper part of the body.
a new fur coat; a coat for formal wear.
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a natural integument or covering, as the hair, fur, or wool of an animal, the bark of a tree, or the skin of a fruit.
-
a layer of anything that covers a surface.
That wall needs another coat of paint.
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a mucous layer covering or lining an organ or connected parts, as on the tongue.
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Archaic. a petticoat or skirt.
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Obsolete.
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a garment indicating profession, class, etc.
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the profession, class, etc., so indicated.
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verb (used with object)
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coats,
present (3rd person singular)
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coated,
past participle, past
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coating
present participle
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to cover with a layer or coating: The furniture was coated with dust.
He coated the wall with paint.
The furniture was coated with dust.
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to cover thickly, especially with a viscous fluid or substance.
Heat the mixture until it coats a spoon. The boy was coated with mud from head to foot.
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to cover or provide with a coat.
noun
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an outdoor garment with sleeves, covering the body from the shoulder to waist, knee, or foot
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any similar garment, esp one forming the top to a suit
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a layer that covers or conceals a surface
a coat of dust
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the hair, wool, or fur of an animal
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short for coat of arms
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in disfavour
verb
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to cover (with) a layer or covering
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(tr) to provide with a coat
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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coatsimple
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coatssimple
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have coatedperfect
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has coatedperfect
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am coatingprogressive
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are coatingprogressive
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is coatingprogressive
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have been coatingperfect progressive
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has been coatingperfect progressive
Past
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coatedsimple
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had coatedperfect
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was coatingprogressive
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were coatingprogressive
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had been coatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of coat
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English cote, from Anglo-French, Old French, from Germanic; compare German Kotze, Old Saxon cott “woolen coat”
Explanation
A coat is a warm piece of clothing you wear when it's cold outside. When the days get short and chilly, it's probably time to start wearing your puffy winter coat. A coat is a necessary garment during the winter in most parts of the world. You can also use the word to mean "layer," like when you paint your house, starting with a coat of primer. Another kind of coat is the one your dog, or any furry animal, has: "I brushed my cat's coat until it shone." Coat comes from the Old French cote, "tunic or overgarment," with its Turkish root kotta, "coarse cloth."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
She then recalls a woman from the agency wearing a white coat, a stethoscope and a pearl necklace appearing and taking her daughter.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
Rita remembered that the shorter man had stuffed them inside his coat while he was yelling for the money.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
I experienced the Aritzia touch myself in January when I went gift-shopping for my wife—a winter birthday put that viral Super Puff coat in the consideration set—and a style adviser approached me almost immediately.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
Just Miley also has a new profile shot that features the star in red lighting wearing a massive Saint Laurent faux fur coat, and it’s giving drama, it’s giving glamour, it’s giving new album cover?
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 1, 2026
He had his coat on the first morning because he’d been outside already.
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
“My closet is full of winter coats, you know what I mean?”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 7, 2026
Gaggles of British tourists with fur coats and spray tans jostled for seating, clutching their outerwear to their chests for space as they scouted for a table to open up.
From Slate ● Aug. 24, 2026
On the Northwest Coast of North America, for instance, some Indigenous communities bred small dogs with woolly coats specifically for their hair.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 10, 2026
On the livestream, Gastélum and his friends were wearing bright orange coats and bags typically used by delivery drivers.
From BBC ● Aug. 5, 2026
They wore white coats and hairnets over their hair.
From "Scream for Ice Cream: Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew, #2" by Carolyn Keene
"This tastes really sweet. It's almost like it's been coated in sugar," said Douyin influencer Liulianzi in a clip liked more than 17,000 times.
From Barron's ● Aug. 30, 2026
One trend centered on the “chamoy pickle”—a hollowed-out jumbo dill pickle typically filled with spicy chips or sour candy, coated with the Mexican condiment chamoy and wrapped in a Fruit Roll-Up.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
Northern sled dogs became compact and heavily coated for cold conditions, while hunting dogs near the equator tended to be leaner and better suited to heat.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 10, 2026
Henkel's cold seal solution is already available for packaging manufacturers to apply to barrier coated paper.
From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026
Olanna did not look at Odenigbo; she carefully focused on one of the men carrying a pile of cement blocks, his thin naked back coated in sweat.
From "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Despite those large differences in charge, every experiment involving charged droplets produced detectable changes in the coating.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 10, 2026
"That's where we then come in, to give them the protective coating to effectively enable these new materials."
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026
With every step farther into “the pile,” what rescue workers came to call the smoldering mass of debris, a coating of white powder got thicker and deeper—like snow that wasn’t snow, my father recalls.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 10, 2026
Paint maker PPG has introduced a fire-resistant coating called Steelguard 951 that can be applied in a fabrication shop before the steel is erected.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
A screaming tornado of insects swirled around the room, coating the walls in glistening black, purple, and green.
From "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
