sheeted

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of sheet.

   The crew sheeted the open wagons before the journey north.

   Every canvas in the studio had been sheeted against the dust.

   Note

   Several verbs share this spelling. The transitive ones mean to cover or wrap, or to form into sheets. They take passives such as "had been sheeted against the dust," and these participles settle into the adjective for covered things. The intransitive "pour heavily" has no passive at all: rain sheeted, or had sheeted, against the glass. Sailors' sheeting, trimming a sail by its sheet, is a separate verb with the same past form.

2. 2
   adjective

   Covered over with a sheet of cloth or paper.

   The sheeted figure on the table looked unsettling in the dim light.

   Workers left the sheeted machinery untouched over the long holiday.

   Similarcovered, shrouded, draped, wrapped

   Oppositeuncovered, exposed

   Note

   Laid over a body, the sheet becomes a shroud. In H. Rider Haggard's She: A History of Adventure (1886–87), a figure holds out her hands "over the sheeted dead." In everyday use the word covers furniture, machinery and figures alike. It does not take degrees: a thing is sheeted or it is not, so "more sheeted" is not idiomatic.

3. 3
   adjective

   Held in place and protected by a special tarpaulin, as a load on a truck or freight car.

   The sheeted wagons rolled out of the freight yard at dawn.

   Inspectors waved the sheeted trailer through the checkpoint without delay.

   Similarcovered

   Oppositeuncovered, open

   Note

   Here the word is a haulage term for open wagons and trailers whose loads are covered and tied down for the journey. It pairs naturally with roped, and a load that is "well roped and sheeted" is ready to travel. The railway magazine Trains, in September 1960, reports a locomotive "in charge of a rake of sheeted mineral wagons." The sheet in question is a purpose-made tarpaulin, not a cloth thrown over the top.

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