covered in clart
- idiom
- UK
:
cubierto de barro
- My trousers were covered in clart after the football match in the rain.
Examples
-
After helping on the farm, his boots were covered in clart.
-
The dogs came back from their walk absolutely covered in clart.
-
The dog was covered in clart!
-
Look! The puppy is covered in clart!
-
After helping on the farm, his boots were covered in clart.
-
My trousers were covered in clart after the football match in the rain.
-
The dogs came back from their walk absolutely covered in clart.
Synonyms
73
1.1
Covered in mud and hard to walk on
7
3.2
Dirty and covered in mud
4
7.0
Dirty and untidy, often wet after being in rain or mud
1
2.5
Not clean because it has mud or grease on it
1
3.7
Covered all over with dirt or mud
A thing that has mud on it, like boots or a coat after walking in wet ground
Completely covered in mud, paint or dust
Antonyms
How Dirty
Surface Forms
Morphology
The structure 'covered in X' is fully compositional: 'covered' (placed over), 'in' (indicating coating) plus the substance noun yields 'coated with [substance]'. If a learner knows the noun 'clart' as meaning mud/dirt, the overall meaning ('coated or smeared with mud') is directly derivable; note that 'clart' is dialectal/rare and may be unfamiliar, but this does not affect the phrase's compositional transparency.
Etymology
The phrase covered in clart comes from an old local word clart that meant wet, sticky mud. Picture boots and clothes smeared with that mud, and you can see why the phrase now means 'coated in mud'.