Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of enveloping, or of inwrapping or covering on all sides.
  • noun A wrapper or covering; anything that surrounds, inwraps, or conceals.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of enveloping or wrapping; an inclosing or covering on all sides.
  • noun That which envelops or surrounds; an envelop.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act of enveloping
  • noun military An offensive action in which an attacking force moves over or around the enemy and attacks from the rear; see also pincer movement
  • noun fencing An action to seize the opponent's blade in one line and lead it (without losing contact) through a full circle to end in the same line

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the act of enclosing something inside something else

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Allied to values is the idea of envelopment: of a kindred notion to this is aerial perspective.

    Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures Henry Rankin Poore 1899

  • Writing of pre-WWI Germany, Allyson Booth, a professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy, notes: "While the Kaiser worried about 'encirclement,' his chief strategists organized the German army for a project of 'envelopment'."

    Archive 2006-08-01 2006

  • Things are in such a kind of envelopment that they have seemed to philosophers, not a few nor those common philosophers, altogether unintelligible; nay even to the Stoics themselves they seem difficult to understand.

    The Meditations 2004

  • Strategic offensive actions include envelopment which is the procedure of gaining the enemy rear, cutting communications and then destroying the enemy position; double envelopment; the turning movement; penetration and pursuit.

    Investment Policy and the Competent Stranger 1988

  • Things are in such a kind of envelopment that they have seemed to philosophers, not a few nor those common philosophers, altogether unintelligible; nay even to the Stoics themselves they seem difficult to understand.

    V 1909

  • Things are in such a kind of envelopment that they have seemed to philosophers, not a few nor those common philosophers, altogether unintelligible; nay even to the Stoics themselves they seem difficult to understand.

    Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius 1839

  • Things are in such a kind of envelopment that they have seemed to philosophers, not a few nor those common philosophers, altogether unintelligible; nay even to the Stoics themselves they seem difficult to understand.

    Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius 1839

  • No defeat so lopsided struck British arms again until 1879, at Isandhlwana in the opening action of the Zulu War, when about 1,500 infantry with two guns and a corps of volunteers were wiped out by Zulus armed with short spears and hard-charging tactics of assault and envelopment.

    George Washington’s First War David A. Clary 2011

  • The operational plan called for a double envelopment, sending the Ninth Army to the north of the Ruhr industrial complex and the First Army to the south.

    Between War and Peace Col. Matthew Moten 2011

  • Alexander surveyed the Indian battle order and decided to deploy a classic envelopment tactic to surround the enemy troops.

    Alexander the Great Philip Freeman 2011

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