Wrap

How to spell wrap

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce wrap

What does wrap mean?

1. verbTo cover or enclose something by folding material around it.
2. nounA garment, shawl, or food item made by folding material or a flatbread around contents.

Wrap in a sentence

• verb

  Please wrap the gift carefully.

• noun

  She ordered a chicken wrap for lunch at the cafe.

• verb

  Could you wrap this present for me?

• noun

  He draped a warm wrap over his shoulders at the outdoor concert.

Where does wrap come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Wrap appears in English around the 1300s as wrappen, meaning to wind, fold, or cover something, though its earlier history is genuinely murky. It is thought to descend from a Germanic root related to twisting or winding, and it has cousins in the Scandinavian languages that carry similar ideas of folding cloth around an object. The silent 'w' at the front is the real spelling trap: it was once pronounced, like the 'w' in 'write' and 'wring', but English speakers stopped sounding it centuries ago while the letter stayed put on the page. That same silent 'wr-' cluster runs through a whole family of words about twisting and bending, including 'wreath', 'wrist', and 'wrench'. Because the spoken word sounds identical to 'rap', the buried 'w' is exactly what a writer has to remember.

How the word is built

• wrap (single root; the silent initial 'w' is a fossil of its Germanic origin)

Words that sound like wrap

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• rap: To strike something with a quick, sharp blow, often to make a knocking sound.