Definition of "cover"

cover

/ˈkʌvɚ/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural covers
1. A lid.
2. (uncountable) Area or situation which screens a person or thing from view.
3. The front and back of a book, magazine, CD package, etc.
4. The top sheet of a bed.
5. A cloth or similar material, often fitted, placed over an item such as a car or sofa or food to protect it from dust, rain, insects, etc. when not being used.
6. A cover charge.
7. A setting at a restaurant table or formal dinner.
  Quotations
  When I gave a dinner there was generally a cover laid for him. I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me.
  1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
8. (music) A new performance or rerecording of a previously recorded song; a cover version; a cover song.
9. (cricket) A fielding position on the off side, between point and mid off, about 30° forward of square; a fielder in this position.
10. (combinatorics, topology) A collection (or family) of subsets of a given set, whose union contains every element of said original set.
11. (philately) An envelope complete with stamps and postmarks etc.
12. (military) A solid object, including terrain, that provides protection from enemy fire.
13. (law) In commercial law, a buyer’s purchase on the open market of goods similar or identical to the goods contracted for after a seller has breached a contract of sale by failure to deliver the goods contracted for.
14. (insurance) An insurance contract; coverage by an insurance contract.
15. (espionage) A persona maintained by a spy or undercover operative; cover story.
16. (dated) A swindler's confederate.
17. The portion of a slate, tile, or shingle that is hidden by the overlap of the course above.
18. In a steam engine, the lap of a slide valve.
19. (construction) The distance between reinforcing steel and the exterior of concrete.
adjective
not comparable
1. Of or pertaining to the front cover of a book or magazine.
2. (music) Of, pertaining to, or consisting of cover versions.
verb
third-person singular simple present covers, present participle covering, simple past and past participle covered
1. (transitive) To place something over or upon, as to conceal or protect.
2. (transitive) To be over or upon, as to conceal or protect.
  Quotations
  A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.
  1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], page 0016
  Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems— […]. Such a slow-release device containing angiogenic factors could be placed on the pia mater covering the cerebral cortex and tested in persons with senile dementia in long term studies.
  2013 May-June, Charles T. Ambrose, “Alzheimer’s Disease”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 200
3. (transitive) To be upon all of, so as to completely conceal.
4. (transitive) To set upon all of, so as to completely conceal.
5. (intransitive, dated) To put on one's hat.
  Quotations
  All the while he held his hat in his hand; and even until he had given his answer, when he covered and bade us be.
  1904, Rawdon Lubbock Brown, Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts
6. (transitive) To invest (oneself with something); to bring upon (oneself).
  Quotations
  the powers that covered themselves with everlasting infamy by the partition of Poland
  1842, Henry Brougham, Political Philosophy
7. (of a publication) To discuss thoroughly; to provide coverage of.
8. To deal with or include someone or something.
  Quotations
  Richard Morgan covers science for The Economist, The New York Times, Scientific American, and Wired.
  2010 (publication date), "Contributors", Discover, ISSN 0274-7529, volume 32, number 1, January–February 2011, page 7
9. To be enough money for.
10. (intransitive) To act as a replacement.
11. (transitive) To have as an assignment or responsibility.
12. (music) To make a cover version of (a song that was originally recorded by another artist).
13. (military, law enforcement) To protect using an aimed firearm and the threat of firing; or to protect using continuous, heaving fire at or in the direction of the enemy so as to force the enemy to remain in cover; or to threaten using an aimed firearm.
14. To provide insurance coverage for.
15. To copulate with (said of certain male animals such as dogs and horses).
  Quotations
  Among animals in a domesticated or confined state it is easy to find evidence of homosexual attraction, due merely to the absence of the other sex. This was known to the ancients; the Egyptians regarded two male partridges as the symbol of homosexuality, and Aristotle noted that two female pigeons would cover each other if no male was at hand.
  1927, Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6)‎
16. (chess, transitive) To protect or control (a piece or square).
17. To extend over a given period of time or range, to occupy, to stretch over a given area.
18. To traverse or put behind a certain distance.
  Quotations
  November 22 — Owing to bad weather all machines flew at a height of 5,000 feet and covered the 90 miles in just 90 minutes . November 23 — During fourth lap ...
  1915, Aerial Age
  It had covered better than 840 miles in just a few hours more than seven days.32 The apparently clumsily managed shuffle through the various railroad nets ...
  1989, Robert K. Krick, Parker's Virginia Battery, C.S.A.
19. (transitive, dated) To arrange plates, etc. on (a table) in preparation for a meal.
  Quotations
  […] he told plaintiff he would cover the table, and furnish it the same as the one he was sitting at, and that he should be waited upon and served the same as those on the other side of the room.
  1892, George Chase, Leading Cases Upon the Law of Torts, page 46
20. (sports) To defend (mark) a particular player or area.