PLAID

Meaning

A type of twilled woollen cloth, often with a tartan or chequered pattern.

• adjectiveHaving a pattern or colors which resemble a Scottish tartan; checkered or marked with bars or stripes at right angles to one another.

PLAID as a word-puzzle answer

PLAID is a 5-letter word with 2 vowels (A, I) and 3 consonants (P, L, D). Every letter is distinct, so it rarely punishes a clean opening guess.

It leans on high-frequency letters (A, I), so a strong vowel-and-common-consonant opener tends to light up quickly. There are no rare letters here, so it is a fair, mid-difficulty answer for the daily Classic puzzle.