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

Etymology

Origin of padding

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

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

There was Molly Hollis, a middle-aged, Midwestern former schoolteacher whose creation required body padding and a wig; a flamboyant redhead; a nearly invisible elderly woman; and, most uncannily, Reichl’s own mother.

From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2026

Tampa Bay Rays center fielder Cedric Mullins collided chest first into the blue padding of the center field wall as he made one last-ditch effort to save his team from a Dodgers home run.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2026

Mexico, and Canada over the next month—already may be padding Nike’s pockets through wholesale distribution.

From Barron's ● Jun. 10, 2026

A WSJ investigation found that predatory providers are billing for phantom services, padding their hours and charging steep fees.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026

She studied his old coat with the padding hanging out of the torn sleeve seam.

From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

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

From Time Magazine Archive

Fancy stitches and cunning invention which provided for thrice the usual number of cartridges told one tale; flannel paddings which sought to make of the military appointment a winter garment told another.

From The Relief of Mafeking How it Was Accomplished by Mahon's Flying Column; with an Account of Some Earlier Episodes in the Boer War of 1899-1900 by Young, Filson

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 Trollope, Anthony

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

From Gilbert Keith Chesterton by Ward, Maisie

And billah, she has stuffings and paddings, too.

From The Book of Khalid by Rihani, Ameen Fares