Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To wrap up; enclose.
  • transitive verb To envelop.
  • transitive verb To absorb completely; engross.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • etc. See inwrap, etc.

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

  • transitive verb To envelop. See inwrap.

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

  • verb To wrap around, surround; to envelop
  • verb To absorb completely or engross

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

  • verb enclose or enfold completely with or as if with a covering

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English enwrappen, inwrappen ("to wrap in"), equivalent to en- +‎ wrap. Compare also Middle English inwlappen (See lap, "to enwrap"). More at en-, wrap. Cognate via Old French with envelop, envelope.

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Examples

  • A painting exhibition titled "Gradation" and the obscurely organized "Points of View" are less inspiring, and the delicate, thoughtful, though somewhat anachronistic works in the Cuban exhibition "Serendipity" was gobbled up by the sensory overload of its neighboring exhibitions, especially the roaring techno music spewing over from next door's addendum to "California Dreamin '," a coma-inducing cavernous video room that could enwrap a viewer for hours.

    Marina Cashdan: The Promised Land? Will Portugal Arte 10 Become a Fixture on the Art World Calendar? Marina Cashdan 2010

  • Bound by our mutual desire to be accepted by the group we attempt to enwrap others within restrictions we pile upon ourselves.

    YOUR WILDERNESS & MINE by DAVID HIGHSMITH EILEEN 2009

  • Bound by our mutual desire to be accepted by the group we attempt to enwrap others within restrictions we pile upon ourselves.

    Archive 2009-12-01 EILEEN 2009

  • At the height of the ceremony, Teubal appeared in the white robe that will eventually enwrap her body in death, when she returns her soul to her Creator.

    Ritual: A Feminist Approach. 2009

  • When we met, the sunshine, filtering through the light foliage of the acacias, shed on Honorine the pale gold, ambient glory in which Raphael and Titian, alone of all painters, have been able to enwrap the Virgin.

    Honorine 2007

  • When we met, the sunshine, filtering through the light foliage of the acacias, shed on Honorine the pale gold, ambient glory in which Raphael and Titian, alone of all painters, have been able to enwrap the Virgin.

    Honorine 2007

  • This habit of abstention from Feeling in the best society enables a Circle the more easily to sustain the veil of mystery in which, from his earliest years, he is wont to enwrap the exact nature of his Perimeter or

    Flatland: a romance of many dimensions 2006

  • I shrink with bone-chilling horror at the deathly shroud of moribund prose that dangles limply from the author's limblike arms, as he threatens ominously to envelopingly enwrap me in it ... or it in me.

    Archive 2006-08-01 Ann Althouse 2006

  • At the very first bars of the intensely passionate allegro, the beginning of the sonata, I felt that numbness, that chill and sweet terror of ecstasy, which instantaneously enwrap the soul when beauty bursts with sudden flight upon it.

    The Jew and other stories 2006

  • At intervals, he stopped, to shake the snow off the rug, and to enwrap Louise afresh; and each violent gust that met him when he turned a corner, smote him doubly; for he pictured to himself the fury with which it must hurl itself against her, sitting motionless before it.

    Maurice Guest 2003

Comments

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  • "Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you."

    - Ludwig Van Beethoven, letter.

    November 23, 2008

  • Oh come on Beethoven, get out of bed and write some music.

    ;-)

    (It's a fantastic verb, though.)

    November 23, 2008