Shroud Meaning
/ˈʃɹaʊ̯d/Definition, CEFR level C2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounThat which clothes, covers, conceals, or protects; a garment.
nounEspecially, the dress for the dead; a winding sheet.
Sentence Examples
He is surrounded by a shroud of mourning.
She bought a shroud for herself long before she died.
CEFR Practice Quiz
In ancient burials, they wrapped the dead body in a white linen ____.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
A thick morning mist began to ____ the valley, making it difficult to see the mountains in the distance.
Word Origin & History
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”)).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"swaddled, as new born, in sable shrouds"
— 1636, George Sandys, Paraphrase upon the Psalms and Hymns dispersed throughout the Old and New Testaments:
"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."
— 2019 April 25, Samanth Subramanian, “Hand dryers v paper towels: the surprisingly dirty fight for the right to dry your hands”, in The Guardian:
"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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
"Yet let us goǃ England is in her shroud – we may not enchain ourselves to a corpse."
— 1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter II, in The Last Man. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC:
"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."
— 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:
Explore More C2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
In ancient burials, they wrapped the dead body in a white linen ____.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
A thick morning mist began to ____ the valley, making it difficult to see the mountains in the distance.