Wiktionary

shroud

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Middle English shroud, from Old English sċrūd, from Proto-Germanic *skrūdą. Cognate with Old Norse skrúð (“the shrouds of a ship”) ( > Danish, Norwegian skrud (“splendid attire”)).

Noun

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shroud (plural shrouds)

  1. That which clothes, covers, conceals, or protects; a garment.
    • 1636, George Sandys, Paraphrase upon the Psalms and Hymns dispersed throughout the Old and New Testaments:
      swaddled, as new born, in sable shrouds
    • 2019 April 25, Samanth Subramanian, “Hand dryers v paper towels: the surprisingly dirty fight for the right to dry your hands”, in The Guardian‎[1]:
      Every time we came a research area, we had to pause while the scientists threw grey shrouds over prototypes that I wasn’t to see.
  2. Especially, the dress for the dead; a winding sheet.
    • c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
      O, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,
      From off the battlements of any tower, […]
      Or bid me go into a new-made grave
      And hide me with a dead man in his shroud […]
    • 1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter II, in The Last Man. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC:
      Yet let us goǃ England is in her shroud – we may not enchain ourselves to a corpse.
    • 1911, James George Frazer, chapter V, in Taboo and the Perils of the Soul (The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion; II), third edition, London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, page 310:
      The obstructive tendency attributed to the knot in spiritual matters appears in a Swiss superstition that if, in sewing a corpse into its shroud, you make a knot on the thread, it will hinder the soul of the deceased on its passage to eternity.
  3. That which covers or shelters like a shroud.
  4. A covered place used as a retreat or shelter, as a cave or den; also, a vault or crypt.
    • c. 1618, George Chapman, Hymns of Homer:
      The shroud to which he won / His fair-eyed oxen.
    • 1554, John Withals, A Dictionarie in English and Latine:
      a vault, or shroud, as under a church
  5. (nautical) One of a set of ropes or cables (rigging) attaching a mast to the sides of a vessel or to another anchor point, serving to support the mast sideways; such rigging collectively.
  6. One of the two annular plates at the periphery of a water wheel, which form the sides of the buckets; a shroud plate.
  7. (astronautics) A streamlined protective covering used to protect the payload during a rocket-powered launch.
Synonyms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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From Middle English schrouden (> Anglo-Latin scrudāre), from Middle English schroud (“shroud”) (see above).

Verb

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shroud (third-person singular simple present shrouds, present participle shrouding, simple past and past participle shrouded)

  1. To cover with a shroud.
    • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:
      The ancient Egyptian mummies were shrouded in a number of folds of linen besmeared with gums.
    • 1954 February, “Third Class Corridor Brake Coaches for British Railways”, in Railway Magazine, pages 132-133:
      The sliding door, which is fitted with a drop light, is shrouded with bristle-type draught excluders.
  2. To conceal or hide from view, as if by a shroud.
    The details of the plot were shrouded in mystery.
    The truth behind their weekend retreat was shrouded in obscurity.
    • 1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=1 to 5):
      One of these trees, with all his young ones, may shroud four hundred horsemen.
    • 1665 (first performance), John Dryden, The Indian Emperour, or, The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. […], London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for H[enry] Herringman […], published 1667, →OCLC, Act III, scene ii, page 30:
      Moon ſlip behind ſome Cloud, ſome Tempeſt riſe / And blovv out all the Stars that light the Skies, / To ſhrovvd my ſhame.
    • 1951 January, H. A. Vallance, “Kyle of Lochalsh Revisited”, in Railway Magazine, page 14:
      As we breasted the first summit, the precipitous mass of the Raven's Rock, towering some 250 ft. above the railway, looked grim and forbidding in the failing light, and distant Ben Wyves was shrouded in mist.
    • 1993, “Sober”, performed by Tool:
      There's a shadow just behind me
      Shrouding every step I take
      Making every promise empty
      Pointing every finger at me
      Waiting like a stalking butler
      Who upon the finger rests
      Murder now the path of must we
      Just because the son has come
  3. To take shelter or harbour.
Translations
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Etymology 3

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Variant of shred.

Noun

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shroud (plural shrouds)

  1. The branching top of a tree; foliage.
    • 1611, King James Version, “xxxi.iii”, in Ezekiel‎[2], Barker edition:
      Behold, the Assyrian was a Cedar in Lebanon with faire branches, and with a shadowing shrowd, and of an hie stature, and his top was among the thicke boughes.

Verb

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shroud (third-person singular simple present shrouds, present participle shrouding, simple past and past participle shrouded)

  1. (transitive, UK, dialect) To lop the branches from (a tree).
    Synonym: shrood

References

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Middle English

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Noun

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shroud

  1. Alternative form of schroud
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Note 1