sheltered

1. 1
   adjective

   Protected from wind, rain, and other weather, usually by a barrier or an enclosed position.

   The garden is sheltered from the north wind by a tall hedge.

   Sailors steered the boat into a sheltered cove to wait out the gale.

   Similarprotected, shielded, secluded

   Oppositeexposed, open, windswept

   Note

   Here the participle has settled into an adjective of place, as in a sheltered cove or a sheltered garden. Because it is an adjective, it grades: one corner can be more sheltered than another, and the calmest spot is the most sheltered. The protection comes from the lie of the land or a barrier, not from anyone's act, and that is what separates it from the verb form.

2. 2
   adjective

   Of a person: raised under excessive parental protection, often resulting in limited social skills or experience of the wider world.

   Like a hothouse flower suddenly transplanted into open, exposed ground.

   Growing up sheltered, she found her first year at college overwhelming.

   His sheltered upbringing left him unprepared for the bluntness of office politics.

   Similarprotected, cloistered, insulated

   Note

   The weather word turned on a life: what the sheltered cove keeps out is wind, and what a sheltered upbringing keeps out is the world. Sociologists use it for how a person was raised. It attaches as readily to the life as to the person, as in a sheltered childhood or a sheltered upbringing, and it usually implies inexperience rather than praising safety.

3. 3
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of shelter.

   Volunteers sheltered hundreds of families after the flood.

   The refugees were sheltered in a converted school for several weeks.

   Note

   Both sides of the verb appear in this form. In the transitive use, someone shields others. In the intransitive use, people take cover themselves, with no object at all. After be, it can blur into the weather adjective. A by-phrase naming who gave the protection, or a moment when it happened, marks it as the verb.

   We sheltered under the bridge until the hail stopped.

   The hikers had sheltered in a cave overnight.

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