blanket
Plural: blankets
Noun
- bedding that keeps a person warm in bed
- anything that covers
- "there was a blanket of snow"
- a layer of lead surrounding the highly reactive core of a nuclear reactor
- A heavy, loosely woven fabric, usually large and woollen, used for warmth while sleeping or resting.
- A covering layer of anything.
- A thick rubber mat used in the offset printing process to transfer ink from the plate to the paper being printed.
- A streak or layer of blubber in whales.
Verb
Verb Forms: blanketed, blanketing, blankets
- To cover completely or uniformly.
- cover as if with a blanket
- "snow blanketed the fields"
- form a blanket-like cover (over)
- To cover with, or as if with, a blanket.
- To traverse or complete thoroughly.
- To toss in a blanket by way of punishment.
- To take the wind out of the sails of (another vessel) by sailing to windward of it.
- To nullify the impact of (someone or something).
- Of a radio signal: to override or block out another radio signal.
Adjective Satellite
- broad in scope or content; ; ; ; ; - T.G.Winner
- "blanket sanctions against human-rights violators"
Adj
- General; covering or encompassing everything.
Examples
- A fresh layer of snow blanketed the area.
- A press operator must carefully wash the blanket whenever changing a plate.
- His strategy was to BLANKET the board with small words, blocking any potential bingos.
- The baby was cold, so his mother put a blanket over him.
- The city woke under a thick blanket of fog.
- The salesman blanketed the entire neighborhood.
Origin / Etymology
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”).
Compare also blunket, plunket. Displaced native Middle English whytel, from Old English hwītel (whence Modern English whittle (“blanket, cloak, shawl”)).
Synonyms
across-the-board, all-embracing, all-encompassing, all-inclusive, broad, cover, encompassing, extensive, mantle, panoptic, wide, all around, blanket, comprehensive, exhaustive, overall, sweeping, thorough
Scrabble Score: 13
blanket: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordblanket: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
blanket: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary