burlap
Americannoun
-
a plain-woven, coarse fabric of jute, hemp, or the like; gunny.
-
a lightweight fabric made in imitation of this.
verb (used with object)
noun
Etymology
Origin of burlap
1685–95; earlier borelap, equivalent to bore(l) coarse cloth ( see bureau) + lap 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It took him a full day to broadcast the seed into the furrows, after which he folded away the burlap, barely noticing a stencilled word indicating where it had come from: Odessa.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 17, 2025
After the fossil hunters had recorded as much data as they could about where Apex was found, its bones were taped up in protective “jackets” made of plaster and burlap and lifted onto a trailer.
From BBC ● May 30, 2024
It wouldn’t strain the imagination to picture him clutching burlap sacks printed with the euro symbol.
From New York Times ● Jan. 27, 2024
These four women who were wrapped in camouflage burlap — and what's interesting is we only now know that the burlap was camouflage colored.
From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2023
One of them held a set of Torah scrolls in a burlap sack, saved, perhaps, from one of the ghetto’s synagogues before it burned to the ground.
From "Prisoner B-3087" by Alan Gratz
It was burlapped at purchase, which of course we removed before planting.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 14, 2022
All about him, burlapped cuttings rest like tablets brought down from Mount Sinai.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 17, 2018
There's an awful big picture," Trudy was saying; "it's all burlapped up, so you can't tell what it is.
From Two Little Women by Wells, Carolyn
But Sarah, in the burlapped studio, between piano pupils, was aghast and bitter.
From Jane Journeys On by Mitchell, Ruth Comfort
So, throughout the days of the journey, the man gazed with avarice upon the piles of burlapped pieces, while his brain devised the scheme.
From The Gun-Brand by Hendryx, James B. (James Beardsley)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
