envelop

UK/ɛnˈvɛləp/US/ɛnˈvɛləp/

verbC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — envelope sits at #2,457neutralformal · an editor’s judgement

Other forms: enveloped, enveloping, envelops

To envelop is to wrap something up completely. Fog does it to a town, and arms do it to a person.

The completeness is essential, since something enveloped is surrounded on every side. It suits fog, smoke, darkness and flame, all of which arrive from outside and close in. There is a warm use about embraces. Note the spelling and stress, since the verb envelop has no e at the end and the noun envelope does, and the two are pronounced quite differently.

Definitions of envelop

1verbenvelopTo wrap up or surround something completely.C2
“Mist will envelop the whole valley by evening.”

Also accepted in games: engulf

Where it comes from

Envelop is wrapping in. Old French envoluper joined en, in, to voloper, to wrap, and the envelope is the same word turned into a noun.

Proto-Indo-European
*werb- — to turn, bend
Proto-Germanic
*wlappaną
Vulgar Latin
*vuloppare — to wrap
Old French
anveloper
Middle English
envolupen
English, today
envelop

Built from

vloper · Old French — to wrap, wrap up
goluppare · Italian — to wrap
*wrappaną · Proto-Germanic — to wrap, roll up, turn, wind

From Middle English envolupen, from Old French anveloper, envoluper (modern French envelopper), from en- + voloper, vloper (“to wrap, wrap up”) (compare Italian viluppare; roa-oit - alternative form goluppare (“to wrap”)) from Vulgar Latin vuloppare (“to wrap”), from Proto-Germanic wlappaną, wrappaną (“to wrap, roll up, turn, wind”), from Proto-Indo-European werb- (“to turn, bend”) [http://www.wordnik.com/words/envelop]. Akin to Middle English wlappen (“to wrap, fold”) (Modern English lap (“to wrap, involve, fold”)), Middle English wrappen (“to wrap”), Middle Dutch lappen (“to wrap up, embrace”), Danish - dialectal vravle (“to wind, twist”), Middle Low German wrempen (“to wrinkle, distort”), Old English wearp (“warp”). Doublet of enwrap.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 26 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

envelop in the wild

The three meninges, membranes that envelop the brain and spinal cord, are composed of connective tissue.
Connective tissue
Penile fracture is rupture of one or both of the tunica albuginea, the fibrous coverings that envelop the penis's corpora cavernosa.
Penile fracture
In some rocks there seems to be little tendency for the minerals to envelop one another.
Poikilitic texture
First, the city of Milford is quickly growing towards Lincoln and could eventually envelop the town.
Lincoln, Delaware
The last rays of the sun illumine the right half of the sky and envelop the mill in their radiant glow.
The Mill (Rembrandt)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the goluppare family

develop

envelop — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others

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