Definition of "covering letter" []

• See cover letter. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "In a covering letter Mr. Darwin pointed out that the enclosure contained a sketch of a theory of Natural Selection as depending on the struggle for existence so identical with one he himself entertained and fully described in MS. in 1842 that he never saw a more striking coincidence: had Mr. Wallace seen his sketch he could not have made a better short abstract, even his terms standing “as heads of chapters.”"
• "We got the news of it in Rome not from Aulus Albinus but from Jugurtha, who sent the Senate a copy of the treaty with a covering letter complaining sharply about Roman treachery in invading a peacefully intentioned country that had not lifted so much as a warlike finger against Rome."
• "By now of course my eye had lighted on the second envelope to which Mr. Anderson's covering letter made such tantalising reference."