envelop

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English envolupen,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French envoluper, also enveloper,^[5][2][6][4] now French envelopper,^[5][7][6] formed from en- (“in”) and voloper (“to wrap up”).^[7][3][4] Etymonline dates the Old French verb to the 10th century,^[7] and the Anglo-Norman envoluper is recorded from the first third of the 12th century.^[8] The present spelling, recorded from 1590, is an alteration influenced by Middle French envelopper.^[3] The origin of voloper is obscure.^[5][6][9] Barnhart, Klein and the American Heritage Dictionary consider Medieval Latin faluppa (“chaff, bundle of straw”), influenced by Latin volvō (“to roll”);^[3][10][4] Dictionary.com compares Italian viluppo (“bundle”) and inviluppare (“to envelop”).^[11][5] Etymonline mentions Celtic and Germanic proposals.^[7][12] Skeat and others compared Middle English wlappen (“to wrap”), which is not known outside English,^[13][5] and the OED finds unsatisfactory Diez's suggestion of a Late Latin form from the same verb.^[5] The same base gives develop,^[12][3][6] and French enveloppe, formed from the French verb, is the source of envelope.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To involve, in the passive: 1386 in the OED, about 1390 in the MED and Barnhart, from Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale, He is moost envoluped in synne.^[5][2][3]

Semantic evolution

The MED records the Middle English verb only for being involved in sin or crime, as in Chaucer and in Hoccleve's enuolupid in cryme (1406).^[2][14] The literal sense, already present in Anglo-Norman,^[8] is dated in English to the 1580s by Etymonline^[7] and to Spenser's The Faerie Queene of 1590 by Barnhart.^[3] The OED quotes Spenser too, for covering closely on all sides with a surrounding medium such as clouds, darkness, flames or the atmosphere, and dates this sense from 1474.^[5] Shakespeare's Henry V has the sense to serve as a wrapping,^[5] and Johnson (1755) defined it as to wrap, cover, hide or surround, with Measure for Measure.^[15] Temple used it of a body of men surrounding others in 1683,^[5] and it is still said of troops surrounding an enemy.^[16][9] The noun envelopment dates from 1763.^[3]

Timeline

• 1386 – to wrap up, figuratively, in Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale.^[5][2]
• 1590 – to cover on all sides with a surrounding medium, in Spenser's The Faerie Queene.^[3][5]
• 1590 – to line, cover on the inside, also in Spenser (obsolete).^[5][16]
• before 1616 – to serve as a wrapping, in Shakespeare's Henry V.^[5]
• 1683 – of a body of men, to surround.^[5][16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To wrap or enclose completely, as in a garment or other covering: A heavy shawl enveloped her shoulders.^[17][9][18]
2. To surround on all sides with something such as air, cloud or darkness: Thick mist enveloped the harbour.^[17][5][16]
3. To conceal or obscure: a deal enveloped in secrecy.^[9][17]
4. To affect deeply or overwhelmingly: A sudden gloom enveloped them.^[16][18]
5. (military) To surround an enemy force, wholly or partly.^[9][16]
6. (obsolete, 1590) To line, cover on the inside.^[5][16]

Word family

• enveloper
• envelopment

Related words

• envelope
• develop

Usage notes

Dictionary.com lists the verb and the noun envelope as a pair easily confused.^[11] The noun, a wrapper or cover, especially for a letter, came into English in 1705 from French.^[7] The verb can less commonly be spelled envelope, a form the Shorter Oxford calls now rare.^[17][16]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
18. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press