blanket

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A thick, soft cover used to keep you warm, especially on a bed.

   The baby was cold, so his mother put a blanket over him.

2. 2
   noun

   A thick layer that covers something completely.

   The city woke under a thick blanket of fog.

3. 3
   verb

   To cover something completely with a thick layer.

   A fresh layer of snow blanketed the whole area.

4. 4
   adj

   Affecting or covering everyone or everything.

   The company introduced a blanket ban on smoking.

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 kv…

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