Cloudlike

Cloudlike is an adjective used to describe something that resembles a cloud in appearance, texture, or behavior. It can indicate visual similarity—soft, fluffy forms with diffuse boundaries—or a figurative quality such as lightness, vagueness, or ethereal quality. The word is formed by adding the suffix -like to cloud.

In visual, natural, and artistic contexts, cloudlike objects include cottony materials, fog banks, or sculptural shapes that imitate cloud forms. Cloudlike lighting refers to soft, diffuse illumination that creates gradual transitions between light and shadow. In atmospheric observations, features may be described as cloudlike when their margins are rounded and the overall silhouette resembles a cloud.

In technology and information contexts, cloudlike is used descriptively to convey properties associated with cloud computing, such as distributed resources, elasticity, and on-demand provisioning. A cloudlike system or service implies abstraction from underlying hardware and scalable access over a network, though the term is not a formal standard and its precise meaning depends on context.

The term is also used metaphorically to describe ideas, data, or interfaces that appear nebulous or ill defined, or to convey softness and diffuseness in design concepts. While related terms include fluffy, nebulous, or wispy, cloudlike emphasizes resemblance to atmospheric clouds as a reference point.