veil
pronunciation
How to pronounce veil in British English:
UK [veɪl]
How to pronounce veil in American English:
US [veɪl]
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- Noun:
- a garment that covers the head and face
- the inner embryonic membrane of higher vertebrates (especially when covering the head at birth)
- a vestment worn by a priest at High Mass in the Roman Catholic Church; a silk shawl
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- Verb:
- to obscure, or conceal with or as if with a veil
- make undecipherable or imperceptible by obscuring or concealing
Word Origin
- veil
- veil: [13] The ultimate source of veil is Latin vēlum ‘sail, curtain, veil’, and English acquired it via Anglo-Norman veile. To reveal something is etymologically to ‘remove a veil’ from it.=> reveal
- veil (n.)
- c. 1200, "nun's head covering," from Anglo-French and Old North French veil (12c., Modern French voile) "a head-covering," also "a sail, a curtain," from Latin vela, plural of velum "sail, curtain, covering," from PIE root *weg- (1) "to weave a web." Vela was mistaken in Vulgar Latin for a feminine singular noun. To take the veil "become a nun" is attested from early 14c.
- veil (v.)
- late 14c., from Old French veler, voiller (12c.), from Latin velare "to cover, veil," from velum "a cloth, covering, curtain, veil," literally "a sail" (see veil (n.)). Figurative sense of "to conceal, mask, disguise" (something immaterial) is recorded from 1530s. Related: Veiled; veiling.
Antonym
Example
- 1. France has banned the islamic veil in state schools .
- 2. Then , one day the veil was lifted and I saw myself for who I really am .
- 3. If you imagine yourself at the altar in a cathedral-length veil , skip ahead to the next tip .
- 4. Her black veil was simple .
- 5. I believe this is your veil .