umbrellaed

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of umbrella.

   Note

   Only one of the verb's meanings can go passive. The transitive "cover or protect" sense can, as in guests were umbrellaed to the curb. The intransitive ones, forming a dome or moving like a jellyfish, give only a simple past or a perfect with have. The same spelling also serves as the adjective for carrying one, so a passive and an adjective can look identical.

2. 2
   adjective

   Covered by an umbrella, or carrying one against rain or sun.

   An umbrellaed pedestrian hurried along the flooded sidewalk toward the station.

   Every umbrellaed guest stayed comfortable while the unprepared ones baked in the sun.

   Note

   The -ed here turns a noun into an adjective meaning "having one," the same pattern behind hatted and booted. Ambrose Bierce puts it in exactly that company in 1892: hatted, booted, overcoated, and umbrellaed. It fits people and things alike, from a deck of umbrellaed passengers to café tables shaded by their own umbrellas. Because it is not comparable, it takes no more or most.

3. 3
   adjectivefiguratively

   Grouped or sheltered under a single overarching organization, category, or protection.

   The newly umbrellaed divisions now report to one parent company and share a brand.

   Several umbrellaed charities pool their resources beneath a common foundation.

   Similaraffiliated, consolidated, grouped

   Oppositeindependent

   Note

   Here the umbrella becomes a metaphor that stretches two ways. One is shelter. Bret Harte in 1912 has a face umbrellaed by a sombrero, and Stan Windass writes of umbrella-ed powers watching their security thin. The other is grouping, as when separate groups are umbrellaed under a single label. It takes by for what shelters and under for what gathers. The hyphenated spelling umbrella-ed also appears.

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