Bedding refers to the materials you sleep on and under: sheets, blankets, comforters, and pillows. When you make your bed in the morning, you're arranging your bedding. When stores advertise a bedding sale, they're selling everything you need to outfit a bed.

The word comes from the idea of making a bed for sleeping. Before modern mattresses, people would literally bed down for the night by piling up straw, hay, or other soft materials to sleep on. Animals still do this: a farmer puts fresh straw in a horse's stall as bedding, and a hamster arranges wood shavings into a cozy nest.

Different climates need different bedding: heavy quilts for cold winters, light cotton sheets for hot summers. Some families pass down special quilts or blankets for generations, turning ordinary bedding into treasured keepsakes that carry memories of the people who used them before.