WREATHE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does wreathe mean? 

• WREATHE (verb)
  The verb WREATHE has 3 senses:

1. move with slow, sinuous movements

2. decorate or deck with wreaths

3. form into a wreath

  Familiarity information: WREATHE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WREATHE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they wreathe    ... he / she / it wreathes   
Past simple: wreathed   
Past participle: wreathed   
-ing form: wreathing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Move with slow, sinuous movements

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s
Something is ----ing PP
Somebody ----s PP

Sense 2

Meaning:

Decorate or deck with wreaths

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

wreathe the grave site

Hypernyms (to "wreathe" is one way to...):

adorn; beautify; decorate; embellish; grace; ornament (make more attractive by adding ornament, colour, etc.)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 3

Meaning:

Form into a wreath

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

wind; wreathe

Hypernyms (to "wreathe" is one way to...):

enlace; entwine; interlace; intertwine; lace; twine (spin, wind, or twist together)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

 Context examples 

His fat, red face wreathed itself in smiles and his small eyes glittered as he greeted my companion.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Of those at the sides, I recall the reddish nose and dark, flashing eyes of the one, and the hard, austere face of the other, with the high coat-collars and many-wreathed cravats.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Above the temples, amidst wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in its character and consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Then, with four attendants, came the novice, her drooping head wreathed with white blossoms, and, behind, the abbess and her council of older nuns, who were already counting in their minds whether their own bailiff could manage the farms of Twynham, or whether a reeve would be needed beneath him, to draw the utmost from these new possessions which this young novice was about to bring them.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I smell the fog that hung about the place; I see the hoar frost, ghostly, through it; I feel my rimy hair fall clammy on my cheek; I look along the dim perspective of the schoolroom, with a sputtering candle here and there to light up the foggy morning, and the breath of the boys wreathing and smoking in the raw cold as they blow upon their fingers, and tap their feet upon the floor.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

A body lay within, its head all wreathed in cotton-wool, which had been soaked in the narcotic.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the Barmecide supper of hot roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk, with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings: I feasted instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings, which I saw in the dark; all the work of my own hands: freely pencilled houses and trees, picturesque rocks and ruins, Cuyp-like groups of cattle, sweet paintings of butterflies hovering over unblown roses, of birds picking at ripe cherries, of wren's nests enclosing pearl-like eggs, wreathed about with young ivy sprays.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The tomb in the day-time, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

They were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams, followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them: the sun was just entering the dappled east, and his light illumined the wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks under them.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)