Blanket

How to spell blanket

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce blanket

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does blanket mean?

1. nounA large piece of soft fabric used to keep warm, especially on a bed.
2. verbTo cover something completely and evenly, as if with a layer.
3. adjectiveApplying to all cases or people without exception.

Blanket in a sentence

• noun

  She pulled the woollen blanket up to her chin on the cold night.

• verb

  Heavy snow can blanket the entire valley overnight.

• adjective

  The company imposed a blanket ban on personal phones at work.

• noun

  They spread a picnic blanket across the grass before lunch.

• verb

  Thick fog tends to blanket the harbour every autumn morning.

• adjective

  A blanket policy covers every employee regardless of department.

Where does blanket come from?

Language of origin: French

The word came into English in the early 1300s from the Old French blanchet or blanket, a diminutive of blanc, meaning 'white'. That French adjective traces back to a Germanic root, blank, meaning 'white' or 'shining', which also survives in the modern English word 'blank'. The name originally described a piece of plain, undyed white woollen cloth used for warmth, and only later did it come to mean any bed covering regardless of colour. A popular but unproven story credits a Bristol weaver named Thomas Blanket, though most scholars regard that as a coincidence of names rather than the true source. The 'white' sense is the key to the spelling: think of blanc and blank sitting inside blanket, with the small -et ending added on.

How the word is built

• blank- (from Old French blanc: white)
• -et (diminutive suffix: a little white cloth)