Padded means filled or covered with a soft material so that something is thicker, warmer, or more comfortable, or so that a bump hurts less. A padded jacket has extra soft layers. A padded seat is nicer to sit on. Padded shoulders on a coat make the top look bigger. Headphones may have padded parts around the ears. Sports hats and bike helmets are often padded on the inside. The idea is always “soft stuff added on purpose.” It comes from pad, a cushion, and the -ed tells you the thing already has that cushioning. You meet it on clothes labels, furniture ads, and sports gear. It is ordinary, not technical. Though actually, the same spelling is also the past of another pad, “walk with soft steps” (she padded across the floor). That is a different use. Here we mean the soft-material one. Writers also say a report is padded when extra useless words were put in to make it look longer — a picture taken from “fill it out” — but that is not the physical meaning.