coat

Pluralcoats

Formscoats, coating, coated

1. 1
   nouncountable

   An outer garment with sleeves that covers the upper body and arms, worn over other clothing.

   He buttoned his coat against the November wind.

   The store's winter coats sold out within a week of the first cold snap.

   Similarjacket, overcoat

   Note

   The garment the whole word grows from: Middle English cote, from Old French cote, an outer garment with sleeves, and further back a Germanic word for a cowl or woolen cloth. Paint, fur, tarred canvas and heraldic arms all borrow the word from this piece of clothing. Tailoring names coats by their cut, as when Stanley J. Weyman's Chippinge Borough (1906) dresses a young man of 1831 in "the swallow-tail coat of the day."

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A layer or covering of material, such as paint, applied to or lying on a surface.

   The painter applied a second coat once the first had dried.

   A thin coat of ice glazed the sidewalk overnight.

   Similarlayer, film, covering, lick

   Note

   Painters count in coats: a fresh coat, a first coat, a second coat once the first has dried. Each layer is one coat, which is why the word takes numbers and "another" so easily. The covering need not be applied by hand, either. Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) gives fruit its coat, "rough or smooth rined," setting it beside bearded husk and shell as the skin nature itself provides.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   The layer of fur or feathers that covers an animal's skin.

   The husky's dense coat protects it from extreme cold.

   Many birds grow a fresh coat of feathers after they molt.

   Similarfur, pelt, fleece, hair

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To cover a surface or object with a layer of some material.

   Workers coat the steel beams with a primer that resists rust.

   The factory coats each pill with a thin film so it is easier to swallow.

   Similarcover, paint, glaze, spread, plaster

   Oppositestrip

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To spread over and cover something, in the way that a garment covers the body.

   A film of ash coated the rooftops for miles around the volcano.

   Pollen can coat an entire car in a single spring afternoon.

   Similarcover, blanket, dust, carpet, smother

6. 6
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A heraldic design or emblem, typically displayed on a shield, representing a family, city, or institution; short for coat of arms.

   The herald recognized the duke's coat at once: three silver stars on a blue field.

   Carved above the doorway was the founder's coat, worn smooth by centuries of weather.

   Similararms, crest, escutcheon

   Note

   A clipped form of coat of arms, a heraldic design that people once wore on cloth. Medieval knights displayed their arms on the surcoat worn over armor, so the garment lent its name to the design. Shakespeare's Henry VI can threaten to "tear the lions out of England's coat," treating the emblem as something that can be torn. On its own, the short form now sounds literary or heraldic.

7. 7
   noununcountable

   A piece of tarred canvas (now usually rubber or leather) secured around a mast or bowsprit to stop water from running down into the hold.

   The bosun fitted a fresh coat around the bowsprit before the Atlantic crossing.

   Water streamed down the mast in the gale, but the coat kept the hold dry.

   Note

   A sailor's fitting named for the garment. It is a collar wrapped around the mast or bowsprit where it passes through the deck, so that water running down the spar cannot follow it into the hold. Tarred canvas did the job first, and rubber or leather replaced it later. In shipboard talk it belongs with other deck fittings rather than with paint, although the tar gives it a coating of its own.

8. 8
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The habit or distinctive dress of an order of men, indicating the order or office; also, cloth generally.

   By his coat, the travelers knew him for a friar.

   Men of every coat (priest, soldier, and scholar) gathered at the council.

   Similarhabit, garb, dress, cloth

   Note

   Dress stands in for the office it marks. Swift writes that "men of his coat should be minding their prayers" (1729), meaning clergymen. Shakespeare's "spirits of richest coat" (1609) points to rank rather than fabric. The construction to recognize is of his coat or of every coat, which works like the familiar phrase "of the cloth" and names a calling or station, not a garment.

9. 9
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A playing card bearing the figure of a king, queen, or jack; a face card; short for coat card.

   He needed a coat to take the trick, and drew the jack of clubs.

   Every coat in the deck counts ten in this game.

   Note

   Short for coat card, the picture card whose figures are dressed: king, queen and jack. The Old Law (1656) by Middleton, Rowley and Massinger builds a joke on it. Servants turned out of a household call themselves "a trick of discarded cards," once "ranked with coats" while their old master lived. The servants' rank becomes a card's value in the deck.

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