enveloped

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of envelop.

   Darkness enveloped the valley as the sun dropped behind the ridge.

   Smoke had enveloped the entire building before firefighters arrived.

   Note

   One spelling does two jobs: the simple past (fog enveloped the town) and the participle after have or be (the town was enveloped). Because envelop is transitive, something is always being surrounded or enfolded, so passive uses come naturally. The same letters also spell the past of verb "envelope" and the "entwined" adjective, so context decides which word you are reading.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of envelope.

   The clerk enveloped the signed contracts and sent them by courier that afternoon.

   All ballots must be enveloped and sealed before they are returned to the election office.

   Note

   Here the verb comes from the noun, and it is rare: to put letters or ballots into an envelope. Envelope was also once an archaic spelling of envelop itself, so older texts can use this verb simply to mean "surround." The past form looks identical to the surrounding verb, so only an actual envelope in the sentence signals this one.

3. 3
   adjective

   Entwined or encircled by something, such as snakes or laurel branches.

   Like the snake coiled around the staff in the medical symbol.

   The heraldic lion was depicted enveloped with laurel branches.

   Two serpents left the central staff enveloped along its full length.

   Similarenwrapped

   Note

   A term of heraldic blazon, where it describes a charge with something coiled around it, such as a staff wound with serpents or a lion wreathed in laurel. It is never graded: a charge is either enveloped or it is not, so "more enveloped" makes no sense. Enwrapped can stand in its place. Unlike the everyday participle, it names a fixed design rather than an event.

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