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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Vail \Vail\, verb (used with an object) [Aphetic form of avale. See {Avale}, {Vale}.] [Written also {vale}, and {veil}.]
1. To let fail; to allow or cause to sink. [Obs.]
Vail your regard Upon a wronged, I would fain have said, a maid! --Shak.
2. To lower, or take off, in token of inferiority, reverence, submission, or the like.
France must vail her lofty-plumed crest! --Shak.
Without vailing his bonnet or testifying any reverence for the alleged sanctity of the relic. --Sir. W. Scott.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Vail \Vail\, verb (used without an object) To yield or recede; to give place; to show respect by yielding, uncovering, or the like. [Written also {vale}, and {veil}.] [Obs.]
Thy convenience must vail to thy neighbor's necessity. --South.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Veil \Veil\ (v[=a]l), noun [OE. veile, OF. veile, F. voile, L. velum a sail, covering, curtain, veil, probably fr. vehere to bear, carry, and thus originally, that which bears the ship on. See {Vehicle}, and cf. {Reveal}.] [Written also {vail}.]
1. Something hung up, or spread out, to intercept the view, and hide an object; a cover; a curtain; esp., a screen, usually of gauze, crape, or similar diaphnous material, to hide or protect the face.
The veil of the temple was rent in twain. --Matt. xxvii. 51.
She, as a veil down to the slender waist, Her unadorn['e]d golden tresses wore. --Milton.
2. A cover; disguise; a mask; a pretense.
[I will] pluck the borrowed veil of modesty from the so seeming Mistress Page. --Shak.
3. (Bot.) (a) The calyptra of mosses. (b) A membrane connecting the margin of the pileus of a mushroom with the stalk; -- called also {velum}.
4. (Eccl.) A covering for a person or thing; as, a nun's veil; a paten veil; an altar veil.
5. (Zo["o]l.) Same as {Velum}, 3.
{To take the veil} (Eccl.), to receive or be covered with, a veil, as a nun, in token of retirement from the world; to become a nun.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Veil \Veil\, verb (used with an object) [imp. & p. p. {Veiled}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Veiling}.] [Cf. OF. veler, F. voiler, L. velarc. See {Veil}, n.] [Written also {vail}.]
1. To throw a veil over; to cover with a veil.
Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight, Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined. --Milton.
2. Fig.: To invest; to cover; to hide; to conceal.
To keep your great pretenses veiled. --Shak.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Caul \Caul\ (k[add]l), noun [OE. calle, kelle, prob. fr. F. cale; cf. Ir. calla a veil.]
1. A covering of network for the head, worn by women; also, a net. --Spenser.
2. (Anat.) The fold of membrane loaded with fat, which covers more or less of the intestines in mammals; the great omentum. See {Omentum}.
The caul serves for the warming of the lower belly. --Ray.
3. A part of the amnion, one of the membranes enveloping the fetus, which sometimes is round the head of a child at its birth; -- called also a {veil}. [1913 Webster +PJC]
It is deemed lucky to be with a caul or membrane over the face. This caul is esteemed an infallible preservative against drowning . . . According to Chrysostom, the midwives frequently sold it for magic uses. --Grose.
I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. --Dickens.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
veil
noun
1: a garment that covers the head and face [syn: {head covering}]
2: the inner embryonic membrane of higher vertebrates (especially when covering the head at birth) [syn: {caul}, {embryonic membrane}]
3: a vestment worn by a priest at High Mass in the Roman Catholic Church; a silk shawl [syn: {humeral veil}]
verb
1: to obscure, or conceal with or as if with a veil; "women in Afghanistan veil their faces" [ant: {unveil}]
2: make undecipherable or imperceptible by obscuring or concealing; "a hidden message"; "a veiled threat" [syn: {obscure}, {blot out}, {obliterate}, {hide}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
160 Moby Thesaurus words for "veil": alibi, apology, apply to, awning, bamboo curtain, barrier of secrecy, beach umbrella, becloud, befog, blackout, blanket, blind, block, bosom, camouflage, canopy, censorship, classify, cloak, clothe, cloud, coat, color, coloring, conceal, cope, cover, cover story, cover up, cover-up, coverage, covering, covert, coverture, cowl, cowling, curtain, device, disguise, dissemble, distract attention from, drape, drapery, draw the curtains, eclipse, enclose, ensconce, enshroud, envelop, enwrap, excuse, facade, false front, feint, file and forget, film, front, gloss, gloss over, guise, handle, hanging, hide, hold out on, hood, housing, hush-up, in petto, invest, iron curtain, ironbound security, keep, keep back, keep between us, keep buttoned up, keep close, keep dark, keep from, keep in ignorance, keep mum, keep secret, keep snug, keep under cover, keep under wraps, lame excuse, lay on, lay over, light shield, locus standi, make no sign, mantilla, mantle, mask, muffle, never let on, not give away, not tell, oath of secrecy, obduce, obfuscate, obscure, occult, official secrecy, ostensible motive, overlay, overshadow, overspread, pall, parasol, play dumb, poor excuse, pretense, pretension, pretext, protestation, public motive, put on, put-off, refuge, repression, screen, scum, seal of secrecy, secrete, security, semblance, shade, shader, shadow, sham, shelter, shield, show, shroud, shutter, slur over, smoke screen, smothering, spread over, stalking-horse, stifling, stratagem, subterfuge, sunblind, sunshade, superimpose, superpose, suppression, trick, umbrella, varnish, veil of secrecy, veiler, veiling, vestment, whitewash, withhold, wrap, wraps, yashmak
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