cloak

• cloke (obsolete)

From Middle English cloke, from Old Northern French cloque (“travelling cloak”), from Medieval Latin clocca (“travelers' cape, literally “a bell”, so called from the garment’s bell-like shape”), of unknown origin.

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• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkloʊk/
• Rhymes: -əʊk

cloak (plural cloaks)

1. A long outer garment worn over the shoulders covering the back; a cape, often with a hood.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 5, in The China Governess‎:

     ‘It's rather like a beautiful Inverness cloak one has inherited. Much too good to hide away, so one wears it instead of an overcoat and pretends it's an amusing new fashion.’

2. A blanket-like covering, often metaphorical.

   Night hid her movements with its cloak of darkness.

3. (figuratively)  That which conceals; a disguise or pretext.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, 1 Thessalonians 2:5:

   For neither at any time vsed wee flattering wordes, as yee knowe, nor a cloke of couetousnesse, God is witnesse:

   Robert South

   No man is esteemed any ways considerable for policy who wears religion otherwise than as a cloak.

4. (Internet) A text replacement for an IRC user's hostname or IP address, making the user less identifiable.

• cloak and dagger

• burnoose, burnous, burnouse
• domino costume

cloak (third-person singular simple present cloaks, present participle cloaking, simple past and past participle cloaked)

1. (transitive) To cover as with a cloak.
2. (transitive, figuratively) To hide or conceal.
3. (science fiction, transitive, intransitive) To render or become invisible via futuristic technology.

   The ship cloaked before entering the enemy sector of space.

• cloaking device