English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɛn.və.ləʊp/, /ˈɒn.və.ləʊp/
• (General American) enPR: än′vəlōp', ĕn′vəlōp'; IPA^(key): /ˈɛn.vəˌloʊp/, /ˈɑn.vəˌloʊp/

Noun

envelope ‎(plural envelopes)

1. A paper or cardboard wrapper used to enclose small, flat items, especially letters, for mailing.
   • 2013 June 14, Jonathan Freedland, “Obama's once hip brand is now tainted”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 18:

     Now we are liberal with our innermost secrets, spraying them into the public ether with a generosity our forebears could not have imagined. Where we once sent love letters in a sealed envelope, or stuck photographs of our children in a family album, now such private material is despatched to servers and clouds operated by people we don't know and will never meet.

2. Something that envelops; a wrapping.
3. A bag containing the lifting gas of a balloon or airship; fabric that encloses the gas-bags of an airship.
   • 1992, Lieutenant Colonel Donald E. Ryan, Jr, The airship's potential for intertheater and intratheater airlift, DIANE Publishing, page 46:

     They have no internal or external support structure, being simply a fabric bag (or envelope) filled with a lighter than air gas. Inside the envelope are one or more "ballonets", or smaller bags, which help maintain the envelope's shape.

4. (geometry) A mathematical curve, surface, or higher-dimensional object that is the tangent to a given family of lines, curves, surfaces, or higher-dimensional objects.
5. (electronics) A curve that bounds another curve or set of curves, as the modulation envelope of an amplitude-modulated carrier wave in electronics.
6. (music) The shape of a sound, which may be controlled by a synthesizer or sampler.
7. (computing) The information used for routing an email that is transmitted with the email but not part of its contents.
8. (biology) An enclosing structure or cover, such as a membrane.
9. (engineering) The set of limitations within which a technological system can perform safely and effectively.
10. (astronomy) The nebulous covering of the head or nucleus of a comet; a coma.
11. An earthwork in the form of a single parapet or a small rampart, sometimes raised in the ditch and sometimes beyond it.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of Wilhelm to this entry?)

Derived terms

Synonyms

• (something that envelops): wrapper
• (bag containing the lifting gas): gasbag

Translations

See also

• Wikipedia article on envelopes used for mailing
• Wikipedia article on envelopes in geometry

Etymology 2

See envelop.

Pronunciation

• enPR: ĕn-vĕl'əp, IPA^(key): /ɛnˈvɛləp/
• for audio, see envelop

Verb

envelope ‎(third-person singular simple present envelopes, present participle enveloping, simple past and past participle enveloped)

1. (nonstandard) Alternative spelling of envelop

Portuguese

envelopes

Etymology

From French enveloppe, from envelopper.

Pronunciation

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ẽ.vɨ.ˈlɔ.pɨ/
• Hyphenation: en‧ve‧lo‧pe

Noun

envelope m (plural envelopes)

1. envelope