Definition of "shroud" [shroud]

• A cloth used to wrap a body for burial; a winding sheet. (noun)
• Something that conceals, protects, or screens: under a shroud of fog. (noun)
• Nautical One of a set of ropes or wire cables stretched from the masthead to the sides of a vessel to support the mast. (noun)
• A similar supporting line for a smokestack or comparable structure. (noun)
• One of the ropes connecting the harness and canopy of a parachute. (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.

• "But she showed me, too, her shroud -- her _shroud_!"
• "The case of the Turin shroud is here symptomal: its authenticity would be awful for every true believer (the first thing to do then would be to analyze the DNA of the blood stains and thus solve empirically the question of who Jesus 'father was ...), while a true fundamentalist would rejoice in this opportunity."
• "First of all, the payload shroud is simply not as roomy -- i.e. useful --- as that upon ARES V."