shroud means that which clothes, covers, conceals, or protects; a garment. It carries an Arena rating of 1701, earned across 7 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, shroud ranks #177 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #647 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #680 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #1,188 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words.
shroud is pronounced /ˈʃɹaʊ̯d/.
Why “shroud” is a great word
A cloth used to wrap a body for burial, or the act of covering or concealing something as if with such a cloth. Its lineage traces from Middle English *shroud*, from Old English *sċrūd* ("a garment, clothing, vestment"), from Proto-Germanic *skrūdą* ("an article of clothing"). Unlike a "veil," which suggests a gauzy, partial obscurity, or a "cloak," a garment of practicality or style, a shroud implies a total, definitive enclosure. It is the coarse linen of the sepulcher, the sea-mist that smothers a coastline, the silence that falls over a crowded room at bad news—the final fabric between what is known and what is gone.
Etymology
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
- That which clothes, covers, conceals, or protects; a garment.e.g.“swaddled, as new born, in sable shrouds” — 1636, George Sandys, Paraphrase upon the Psalms and Hymns dispersed throughout the Old and New Testaments:
- Especially, the dress for the dead; a winding sheet.e.g.“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 […]” — 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[
- That which covers or shelters like a shroud.e.g.“Jura answers through her misty shroud.” — 1812–1818, Lord Byron, “(please specify |canto=I to IV)”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thoma
- A covered place used as a retreat or shelter, as a cave or den; also, a vault or crypt.e.g.“The shroud to which he won / His fair-eyed oxen.” — c. 1618, George Chapman, Hymns of Homer:
- 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.e.g.“Then - a shock of water, a wild rush of boiling foam, and I was clinging for my life to the shroud, ay, swept straight out from it like a flag in a gale.” — 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
- One of the two annular plates at the periphery of a water wheel, which form the sides of the buckets; a shroud plate.
- A streamlined protective covering used to protect the payload during a rocket-powered launch.
- The branching top of a tree; foliage.e.g.“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.” — 1611, King James Version, “xxxi.iii”, in Ezekiel, Barker edition:
verb
- To cover with a shroud.e.g.“The ancient Egyptian mummies were shrouded in a number of folds of linen besmeared with gums.” — 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
- To conceal or hide from view, as if by a shroud.e.g.“The details of the plot were shrouded in mystery.”
- To take shelter or harbour.
- To lop the branches from (a tree).
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.