en·vel·op

(ĕn-vĕl′əp)

tr.v. en·vel·oped, en·vel·op·ing, en·vel·ops

1. To wrap, enclose, or cover: "Accompanying the darkness, a stillness envelops the city" (Curtis Wilkie).

2. To surround: The troops enveloped the town.

[Middle English envolupen, to be involved in, from Old French envoluper, envoloper : en-, in; see en-¹ + voloper, to wrap up; perhaps akin to Medieval Latin faluppa, chaff, straw (influenced by Latin volvere, to roll).]

en·vel′op·er n.

en·vel′op·ment n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.

enveloping - surrounding and closing in on or hemming in; "the army's enveloping maneuver"

close - at or within a short distance in space or time or having elements near each other; "close to noon"; "how close are we to town?"; "a close formation of ships"

enveloping

adjective enclosing, surrounding, concealing, encompassing, shrouding, encircling, all-embracing, enfolding Astronomers are unable to see the planet's surface because of the enveloping clouds.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

enveloppant

enveloping

[ɪnˈveləpɪŋ] ADJ [movement] → envolvente

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

enveloping

adj → alles umhüllend; the all-enveloping fog → die dichte Nebelhülle

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature's skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption; because you cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale's body but that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer of any animal, if reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin?

View in context

During the entire incident his shouts and curses were heard, as if through an enveloping uproar of such sounds of rage and fury as I had never heard from the throat of man or brute!

View in context

1 / 7 Heavy sandstorm sweeps the Saudi capital Riyadh, enveloping the city's skyline with dust.

Heavy sandstorm sweeps Riyadh enveloping city skyline with dust

It is vital to catch bearing defects as early as possible, to stop them developing into more serious problems, and one way of achieving this is to use a signal processing technique called acceleration enveloping. It works by progressively filtering out unwanted parts of the vibration spectrum until the signal of a bearing defect can clearly be seen.

How to pinpoint bearing failure at an early stage: envelope signal processing is a relatively new technique used to pinpoint bearing failure at an early stage. This relatively unknown technique can minimise the risk of machine damage and failure

Enveloping the reader in the sights, sounds, armchairs, this colourful tome is a welcome addition as it tours the Moroccan city of Marrakesh from a design perspective.

The style bible

However, what if we need to analyze the enveloping concentration profile within the near field of a release?

An investigation into the Pu-239 concentration profile within the near-field of a Manhattan era radioactive waste cleanup site

Even 30 years after they were introduced, much remains mysterious about Lie superalgebras and enveloping algebras, says Musson (mathematics, U.

Lie superalgebras and enveloping algebras