Definition of "cladding" [cladding]

• A metal coating bonded onto another metal under high pressure and temperature. (noun)
• The process of forming such a coating. (noun)
• A protective or insulating layer fixed to the outside of a building or another structure. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "A fifty-pound chunk of steel was missing from the reactor, and the only thing holding the coolant in was the stainless cladding, which is paperthin, and which bulged out the hole like bubblegum."
• "That contrasts with a meltdown of the cladding, which is destroyed at temperatures above 1,200 degrees Celsius and releases radioactive isotopes into the containment building."
• "So their driver, who is non-Amish and carries a cell phone, called the cladding company."