blanket

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   anything that covers

   there was a blanket of snow

2. 2
   verb

   to form a blanket-like cover over

   I blanketed the lawn with towels.

3. 3
   noun

   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.

4. 4
   noun

   A covering layer of anything.

   The city woke under a thick blanket of fog.

5. 5
   noun

   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.

6. 6
   adj

   General; covering or encompassing everything.

   Another observer offered a less blanket criticism.

7. 7
   verb

   To cover with, or as if with, a blanket.

   A fresh layer of snow blanketed the area.

8. 8
   verb

   To traverse or complete thoroughly.

   The salesman blanketed the entire neighborhood.

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 kv…