blanket
Forms
- Plural
- blankets
- present (v1)
- blanket
- past (v2)
- blanketed
- past participle (v3)
- blanketed
- present participle
- blanketing
- 3rd person singular
- blankets
Definitions
1.A heavy, loosely woven fabric, usually large and woollen, used for warmth while sleeping or resting.
- The baby was cold, so his mother put a blanket over him.
- The little boys in the front bedroom had thrown off their blankets and lay under the sheets.
2.A covering layer of anything.
- The city woke under a thick blanket of fog.
- In this case, the excavations were carried down to a depth of 3 ft. 9 in. below rail level, and pre-cast concrete slabs were laid between a 12 in. blanket of quarry waste and the ballast.
3.A thick rubber mat used in the offset printing process to transfer ink from the plate to the paper being printed.
- A press operator must carefully wash the blanket whenever changing a plate.
4.A streak or layer of blubber in whales.
- Could I have a pillow and blanket?
- Tom laid the baby down on a blanket.
1.General; covering or encompassing everything.
- Another observer offered a less blanket criticism.
- By contrast, any emotional or motivational explanation of autism would seem to predict too blanket a degree of social disinterest.
- Disenchanted with socialism, they unleashed free enterprise (or tried to) and backed it up with a more-or-less blanket endorsement of the old ways.
1.To traverse or complete thoroughly.
- The salesman blanketed the entire neighborhood.
2.To cover with, or as if with, a blanket.
- A fresh layer of snow blanketed the area.
- I see the moon go off watch and the darkness begin to blanket the river.
- The noise of the fire silenced the seabirds. Then snow blanketted the fire. Birds sang in the snow, and I awoke.
3.To toss in a blanket by way of punishment.
- Wee'll haue our men blanket 'hem i' the hall.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #3661
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Uncommon
Related words
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English blanket, blonket, blaunket, from Old Northern French blanket, blancet (“white horse", also "white woollen cloth or flannel; a type of jacket”, literally “that which is white”) (whence Modern French blanchet), diminutive of blanc (“white”), of Germanic origin (compare Old English blanca (“white horse”); see more at blank). Furthermore, the sense "white woollen cloth" is likely a calque of Old English hwītel (“blanket; cloak, mantle”), from Old English hwīt (“white”) + -el (diminutive suffix). Compare also Old Norse hvítill (“a white bed-cover, sheet”), Norwegian kvitel (“blanket”).