Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SHROUD, v.t.

1. To cover; to shelter from danger or annoyance. Under your beams I will me safely shroud. – Spenser. One of these trees with all its young ones, may shroud four hundred horsemen. – Raleigh.
2. To dress for the grave; to cover; as a dead body. The ancient Egyptian mummies were shrouded in several folds of linen besmeared with gums. – Bacon.
3. To cover; to conceal; to hide; as, to be shrouded in darkness. Some tempest rise, / And blow out all the stars that light the skies, / To shroud my shame. – Dryden.
4. To defend; to protect by hiding. So Venus from prevailing Greeks did shroud / The hope of Rome, and sav'd him in a cloud. – Waller.
5. To overwhelm; as, to be shrouded in despair.
6. To lop the branches of a tree. [Unusual or improper.] – Chambers.