coverture means concealing cover, disguise, veil; (also figurative). It carries an Arena rating of 1729, earned across 6 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, coverture ranks #144 of 13,218 for Most Ponderous Words, #515 of 13,218 for Most Storied Words, #918 of 13,218 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #940 of 13,218 for Most Malleable Words.
Why “coverture” is a great word
A common law doctrine whereby a married woman's legal existence and property rights were subsumed by those of her husband. From Middle English, borrowed from Anglo-French *coverture*, from *covrir* ("to cover"), from Late Latin *coopertura*. Unlike *couverture*—a glossy chocolate coating—or the general concept of a covert shelter, coverture was a specific, suffocating embrace by the state. It was the legal signature she could not authorize, the inheritance that passed directly into his hands, the child who was solely his ward—a philosophical disappearance enacted by parchment and precedent, a woman made ghost within the very institution meant to be her protection.
Etymology
From Middle English, borrowed from Old French coverture, from covrir (“to cover”) or from Late Latin coopertura. Doublet of couverture.
noun
- Concealing cover, disguise, veil; (also figurative).
- A common law doctrine developed in England during the Middle Ages, whereby a woman's legal existence, upon marriage, was subsumed by that of her husband, particularly with regard to ownership of property and protection.“Note that voting by widows did not raise some of the concerns that might have arisen from voting by wives subject to common-law coverture servitude to their husbands.”
- Shelter, hiding place.“URSULA. The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait:
So angle we for Beatrice; who even now
Is couched in the woodbine coverture.”
Words closest in meaning
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