Meaning & use
word cloud
Last updated
UK/ˈwɜːd klaʊd/
US/ˈwɜːrd klaʊd/
Meaning
nouncountable
A picture made of words from a text, with more frequent words shown larger.
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a word cloud' or 'word clouds'.
Patterns
- a word cloud
- word clouds
- a word cloud of something
The teacher made a word cloud of the students' answers.
The word cloud showed that 'health' was the most common topic.
We used a word cloud to summarize the survey results.
Word forms
| plural | word clouds |
|---|
Common combinations
- create a word cloud
- You can create a word cloud from any text.
- generate a word cloud
- The software generates a word cloud in seconds.
- word cloud of the text
- The word cloud of the text highlighted the main themes.
- word cloud tool
- There are many free word cloud tools online.
Synonyms and how they differ
- tag cloud
- A tag cloud is similar but usually made from tags or keywords on a website, not from a whole text; word cloud is more general.
Commonly confused: word cloud or cloud computing?
word cloud vs cloud computing
Cloud computing is about using remote servers over the internet; a word cloud is a visual display of words.
Practice
In a word cloud, the size of each word usually shows ___.
Choose one answer.
In a word cloud, the most frequent words are shown largest. The length or difficulty of a word does not decide its size.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “word cloud”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.
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