as in veil
something that covers or conceals like a piece of cloth
under the coverture of a raging snowstorm, the rebels undertook their surprise attack on the fortress
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of coverture
While Northern women were trapped in coverture, Southern states were bypassing coverture specifically for the purpose of giving married women rights to own enslaved people.
—
Trevon Logan, The Conversation, 10 June 2024
Heavenly Mother, according to our own doctrine, can’t be some wilting Victorian flower shrinking under the protective coverture of a strong man.
—The Salt Lake Tribune, 7 May 2022
The famous legal scholar William Blackstone had interpreted coverture rather strictly in the 1760s, and the American Revolution did nothing to change that.
—Washington Post, 25 Feb. 2022
That started to change by about the 18th century, when coverture laws—which counted wives as legal property of their husbands—grew more entrenched in Britain, and evolved to effectively forbid women from owning land at all.
—Michael Waters, The Atlantic, 27 Oct. 2021
In the nascent American Republic, where some humans could vote and most others were in coverture to their voting husbands or were the property of those men, the notion of majority representation was corrupted a priori.
—Shannon Pufahl, The New York Review of Books, 21 Apr. 2020
Coverture also meant that a man had largely unrestrained access to his wife’s body.
—Elizabeth Weingarten, The Atlantic, 15 June 2017
The answer partially lies in the practices of coverture, embedded in the old law of domestic relations that American colonists inherited from the British and didn’t change after the Revolution.
—Elizabeth Weingarten, The Atlantic, 15 June 2017
Trevon Logan, The Conversation, 10 June 2024
Heavenly Mother, according to our own doctrine, can’t be some wilting Victorian flower shrinking under the protective coverture of a strong man.
—The Salt Lake Tribune, 7 May 2022
The famous legal scholar William Blackstone had interpreted coverture rather strictly in the 1760s, and the American Revolution did nothing to change that.
—Washington Post, 25 Feb. 2022
That started to change by about the 18th century, when coverture laws—which counted wives as legal property of their husbands—grew more entrenched in Britain, and evolved to effectively forbid women from owning land at all.
—Michael Waters, The Atlantic, 27 Oct. 2021
In the nascent American Republic, where some humans could vote and most others were in coverture to their voting husbands or were the property of those men, the notion of majority representation was corrupted a priori.
—Shannon Pufahl, The New York Review of Books, 21 Apr. 2020
Coverture also meant that a man had largely unrestrained access to his wife’s body.
—Elizabeth Weingarten, The Atlantic, 15 June 2017
The answer partially lies in the practices of coverture, embedded in the old law of domestic relations that American colonists inherited from the British and didn’t change after the Revolution.
—Elizabeth Weingarten, The Atlantic, 15 June 2017
Recent Examples of Synonyms for coverture
Noun
-
Previously, veils of grandeur — or length — were reserved for royal nuptials.—
Leah Dolan,
CNN Money,
30 June 2025
-
The veil between the online and offline realms feels thin as Zoomers socialize in their Zoomer way: playful, anarchic, yet always aware of the camera.—
Spencer Kornhaber,
The Atlantic,
27 June 2025
Noun
-
Set in the year 3333 on a desolate alien world, players take on the role of the Swordsman, a somewhat blank slate character with minimalist features clad in a tattered cloak.—
Christopher Cruz,
Rolling Stone,
24 June 2025
-
The series also serves as the MCU’s introduction of spectral magic meeting tech via the villainous character The Hood (Anthony Ramos), a low-level criminal who stumbles upon a magical cloak powered by the same forces depicted in Doctor Strange.—
Anthony D'Alessandro,
Deadline,
23 June 2025
Noun
-
The hospital had run out of white shrouds to cover the deceased.—
Anas Baba,
NPR,
6 July 2025
-
Two of Harold’s three wives were there, his grown children, a handful of friends and colleagues: whoever could make it so far, in such haste, to see Harold put to rest in his shroud.—
Nicole Krauss,
The Atlantic,
6 July 2025
Cite this Entry
“Coverture.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/coverture. Accessed 12 Jul. 2025.
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