shawl

plural shawls

1. A square or rectangular piece of cloth worn as a covering for the head, neck, and shoulders, typically by women.First known use 1662

   She wears her shawl when it's cold outside.

   4 more examples

   Just then Norbourne entered the chamber; and, fancying from her attitude that his wife was asleep, he approached softly, and drew a large shawl around her.

   1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 60

   Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after her a tall young lady. She stood for a moment holding her skirt above the grimy steps,[…], and the light of the reflector fell full upon her.

   1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC

   "In the coach in which I rode, there was a vacant seat till our arrival in Birmingham. Leaving Birmingham I found it filled with a fat Englishman, in drab breeches and gaiter boots, the finest specimen of a thorough John Bull that I had seen—weight about sixteen stone. He wore two top coats, a broad brimmed hat, and an enormous red travelling shawl, behind the folds of which his portly double chin was entirely hidden.

   1958 October 28, “Liverpool to London in 1842”, in Railway Magazine, page 682

   Jessamy turned. Her uplifted candle showed a dark handsome young women in a black dress. She wore a wide shawl over her head which hung down on either side, only partially hiding a starched, white apron..

   1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 26

2. A fold of wrinkled flesh under the lips and neck of a bloodhound, used in scenting.

present singular third person shawls · participle present shawling · participle past shawled · past shawled

1. transitiveTo wrap in a shawl.

   Rebecca was shawling her in an upper apartment , where these two friends had an opportunity for a little of that secret talking and conspiring which forms the delight of female life

   1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC