An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Kleid
Kleid, n., ‘dress,’ from the equiv. MidHG. kleit (gen. kleides), n.; wanting in OHG. till the middle of the 12th cent.; hence the word is supposed to be borrowed from Du. kleed. Unknown orig. to OSax. also, as well as to Goth. and several AS. records (AS. clâþ, n., ‘cloth, dress,’ E. cloth; OIc. klœ́þi, m., ‘stuff, cloth, dress’). The history of the word, which is more widely diffused in the modern Teut. languages, is obscure on account of the want of early references and the divergence of the earliest recorded forms, AS clûþ, n., and OIc. klœ́ði, n. (the latter too has an abnormal â instead of ei for the Teut. oi). If the dental of AS. clâþ be regarded as derivative (Goth. *klai-þa), we may infer from the AS. and OIc. meaning ‘stuff, cloth’ (AS. cildclâþ, prop. ‘child's clothes,’ with the special sense ‘swaddling cloth’), a root klai signifying perhaps ‘to weave.’