blankets

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of blanket.

   Volunteers handed out warm blankets to families at the shelter.

   She folded the woolen blankets and stacked them at the foot of the bed.

   Note

   Only the noun meanings take this plural: bedding, any covering layer, the rubber mat of offset printing, a layer of blubber in whales. The adjective never does, so a sweeping rule stays a blanket ban however many there are. Write blanket bans, never blankets bans. The same spelling also serves the present-tense verb, as in snow blankets the hills.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of blanket.

   A heavy layer of ash blankets the fields near the volcano.

   Each winter, frost blankets the orchard and threatens the early buds.

   Note

   Behind the -s stands a transitive verb that nearly always takes an object: ash blankets the fields, and a strong station blankets a weaker signal. Beyond covering, it can mean working through something thoroughly or nullifying someone's impact. At sea it means stealing another vessel's wind by sailing to windward of it. One use keeps the bedding literally in hand: tossing someone in a blanket as punishment.

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