From Middle English blanket, blonket, blaunket, from fro-nor - blanket, blancet (whence Modern French blanchet), diminutive of blanc, of Germanic - origin, likely a calque of Old English hwītel (“cloak, mantle”), from Old English hwīt (“white”) + -el.

More at blank. Compare also blunket, plunket. Displaced native Middle English whytel, from Old English hwītel (whence Modern English whittle (“blanket, cloak, shawl”)).

• IPA: /ˈblæŋkɪt/

blanket (plural blankets)

1. A heavy, loosely woven fabric, usually large and woollen, used for warmth while sleeping or resting.

   The baby was cold, so his mother put a blanket over him.

   • 1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 1, in Jacob's Room, Richmond, London: […] Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC ↗; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC ↗:

     The little boys in the front bedroom had thrown off their blankets and lay under the sheets.

2. A layer of anything.

   The city woke under a thick blanket of fog.

3. A thick rubber mat used in the offset printing process to transfer ink from the plate to the paper being printed.

   A press operator must carefully wash the blanket whenever changing a plate.

4. A streak or layer of blubber in whales.

• French: couverture
• German: Decke, Wolldecke, Bettdecke
• Italian: coperta
• Portuguese: cobertor, manta, coberta
• Russian: одея́ло
• Spanish: manta (Spain standard usage), cobija (Central America), colcha (Cuba), frazada (Argentina), frisa (Dominican Republic),

• German: Schicht, Lage
• Italian: coltre, mantello
• Russian: покрыва́ло
• Spanish: capa

blanket (not comparable) (only attributive)

1. General; covering or encompassing everything.

   Synonyms: all-encompassing, exhaustive, Thesaurus:comprehensive

   • 2017, Mary Kreiner Ramirez, Steven A. Ramirez, The Case for the Corporate Death Penalty, page 207:

     The second reason offered for blanket nonprosecutions for crimes committed at the megabanks involves the possibility that such prosecutions could harm the economy.

• French: général
• German: allgemein, umfassend, allumfassend, General-, pauschal
• Spanish: general

blanket (third-person singular simple present blankets, present participle blanketing or blanketting, simple past and past participle blanketed or blanketted)

1. (transitive) To cover with, or as if with, a blanket.

   A fresh layer of snow blanketed the area.

   • c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, →OCLC ↗, [Act II, scene iii] ↗:

     […] / I will preſerue my ſelfe, and am bethought / To take the baſeſt and moſt pooreſt ſhape, / That euer penury in contempt of man, / Brought neare to beaſt, my face ile grime with filth, / Blanket my loynes, elſe all my haire with knots, / And with preſented nakedness outface, / The wind, and perſecution of the skie, / […]

   • 1884 December 9, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter VIII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer's Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC ↗, page 64 ↗:

     I see the moon go off watch and the darkness begin to blanket the river.

2. (transitive) To traverse or complete thoroughly.

   The salesman blanketed the entire neighborhood.

3. (transitive) To toss in a blanket by way of punishment.
   • 1600 (first performance), Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Cynthias Reuels, or The Fountayne of Selfe-Loue. […]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616, →OCLC ↗, Act III, scene ii, page 209 ↗:

     Hang him, poore grogran-raſcall, pray thee thinke not of him: I’le ſend for him to my lodging, and haue him blanketted when thou wilt, man.

   • 1609 December (first performance), Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Epicoene, or The Silent Woman. A Comœdie. […]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616, →OCLC ↗, Act V, scene iiii:

     Wee'll haue our men blanket 'hem i' the hall.

4. (transitive) To take the wind out of the sails of (another vessel) by sailing to windward of it.
5. (transitive) To nullify the impact of (someone or something).
6. Of a radio signal: to override or block out another radio signal.

• French: recouvrir, couvrir
• German: decken, verdecken, zudecken, abdecken, überdecken

• German: abdecken, abgrasen, durchstreifen