Link Centre Dictionary

envelope

en·ve·lope

UK/ɛnˈvɛləp/ US/ˈɒnvə(ˌ)ləʊp/ common

noun

1.
2.

any wrapper or covering

3.

a curve that is tangent to each of a family of curves

4.

a natural covering (as by a fluid)

  • “the spacecraft detected an envelope of gas around the comet”
5.

the maximum operating capability of a system

  • “test pilots try to push the envelope”
6.

the bag containing the gas in a balloon

Synonyms

Origin

PIE word *h₁én From French enveloppe. The engineering sense is derived from flight envelope. The verb is from the noun.

Phrases

  • banker's envelope
  • blind envelope
  • brown envelope journalism
  • brown envelope syndrome
  • bubble envelope
  • building envelope
  • concave envelope
  • convex envelope

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

Parts

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.