What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Shroud vs Cloak - What's the difference?

shroud | cloak |

As nouns the difference between shroud and cloak

is that shroud is that which clothes, covers, conceals, or protects; a garment while cloak is a long outer garment worn over the shoulders covering the back; a cape, often with a hood.

As verbs the difference between shroud and cloak

is that shroud is to cover with a shroud while cloak is to cover as with a cloak.

shroud

English

(wikipedia shroud)

Noun

(en noun)
  • That which clothes, covers, conceals, or protects; a garment.
  • * Sandys
    • swaddled, as new born, in sable shrouds
  • Especially, the dress for the dead; a winding sheet.
  • * Shakespeare
    • a dead man in his shroud
  • That which covers or shelters like a shroud.
  • * Byron
    • Jura answers through her misty shroud .
  • A covered place used as a retreat or shelter, as a cave or den; also, a vault or crypt.
  • * Chapman
    • The shroud to which he won / His fair-eyed oxen.
  • * Withals
    • a vault, or shroud , as under a church
  • The branching top of a tree; foliage.
  • * '>citation
  • (nautical) A rope or cable serving to support the mast sideways.
  • * See also Wikipedia article on
  • One of the two annular plates at the periphery of a water wheel, which form the sides of the buckets; a shroud plate.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To cover with a shroud.
  • * Francis Bacon
    • The ancient Egyptian mummies were shrouded in a number of folds of linen besmeared with gums.
  • To conceal or hide from view, as if by a shroud.
    • The details of the plot were shrouded in mystery.
    The truth behind their weekend retreat was shrouded in obscurity.
  • * Sir Walter Raleigh
    • One of these trees, with all his young ones, may shroud four hundred horsemen.
  • * Dryden
    • Some tempest rise, / And blow out all the stars that light the skies, / To shroud my shame.
  • To take shelter or harbour.
  • * Milton
    • If your stray attendance be yet lodged, / Or shroud within these limits.

    cloak

    English

    (wikipedia cloak)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A long outer garment worn over the shoulders covering the back; a cape, often with a hood.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
    • , chapter=5 citation , passage=‘It's rather like a beautiful Inverness cloak one has inherited. Much too good to hide away, so one wears it instead of an overcoat and pretends it's an amusing new fashion.’}}
  • A blanket-like covering, often metaphorical.
  • (figurative)  That which conceals; a disguise or pretext.
  • * South
    • No man is esteemed any ways considerable for policy who wears religion otherwise than as a cloak .
  • (Internet)  A text replacement for an IRC user's hostname or IP address, making the user less identifiable.

    • Derived terms

    * cloak and dagger

    See also

    * burnoose, burnous, burnouse * domino costume

    Verb

  • To cover as with a cloak.
  • (science fiction, ambitransitive) To render or become invisible via futuristic technology.
    • The ship cloaked before entering the enemy sector of space.

    Derived terms

    * cloaking device