encase
Americanverb (used with object)
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encases,
present (3rd person singular)
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encased,
past participle, past
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encasing
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
encasesimple
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encasessimple
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have encasedperfect
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has encasedperfect
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am encasingprogressive
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are encasingprogressive
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is encasingprogressive
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have been encasingperfect progressive
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has been encasingperfect progressive
Past
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encasedsimple
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had encasedperfect
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was encasingprogressive
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were encasingprogressive
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had been encasingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of encase
Explanation
To encase something is to cover it or close it off, as if you were putting it in a shell, a coating, or a box. Some cheesemakers encase each wheel of cheese in wax. When you're packing your lunch, you might encase a brownie in wax paper, or encase a sandwich in a plastic container. A hug can encase you in warmth and affection, and the dark can even seem to encase you on a moonless night in the country. Encase combines the prefix en-, "make" or "put in," and case, "container" or "receptacle," from the Latin root capsa, "box."
Vocabulary lists containing encase
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:
Enormous machines wrapped layers of carbon around 40-foot-long cylinders, producing carbon tubes that can encase burning rocket fuel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 11, 2026
She thought perhaps she could keep them, encase them in a necklace to wear in memory.
From Salon ● Sep. 14, 2025
However, the quantum noise that lurks inside the vacuum tubes that encase LIGO's laser beams can alter the timing of the photons in the beams by minutely small amounts.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 23, 2023
As one way to stop the thefts, Metro is working to encase its copper wires in concrete.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2023
The constructor was thus led to encase the lower parts of his walls in a cuirass of stone imposed upon their brick cores.
From A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria, v. 1 by Sir Walter Armstrong
“Midnight Movement” encases Monk’s best-known melody, “’Round Midnight” within a chiming, repeated figure and a gauze of natural overtones and synth tones.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
The operation's name - "matryoshkas" are Russian nesting dolls - mirrors its method, which encases an original false claim in layers of ambient re-posts from old or hacked social media accounts.
From BBC ● Feb. 27, 2026
Most quantum computers include a component casually referred to as a “fridge,” a cryogenic enclosure that encases the processor and keeps it cold.
From Barron's ● Jan. 6, 2026
But there is no denying that even his forays into décor — such as a commercially produced, now-popular coffee table that encases pounds of blue powder inside a plexiglass box — emit a celestial flavor.
From New York Times ● May 16, 2024
Agnew and Hamilton knew from their years practicing military surgery that the human body often encases a bullet in a cyst, or sac, making it harmless.
From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow
Messenger RNA technology uses synthetic molecular instructions encased in tiny fat bubbles that temporarily enter cells, causing them to produce targets that train the body’s immune system.
From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026
“Gondola cars encased in digital ads, flying 26 feet overhead every 25-30 seconds would irreparably impair the vista, and the sense of calm and escape from urban life,” wrote former state parks director Ruth Coleman.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2026
By day, it bubbles in a giant stainless-steel pot about 5 feet across and one foot deep, encased in lava-like concrete and heated by gas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
The atemoya, a hybrid of different custard apple species with creamy white flesh encased in a rough green exterior, is a specialty of Taiwan's Taitung county.
From BBC ● Jun. 22, 2026
I want to absorb her and walk around for the rest of my days with her encased in my skin.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
When it does bloom, the spathe — leaflike structures encasing the plant — unfurl around 3 or 4 p.m., reaching maximum size in the early hours of the morning.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
Bulletproof glass encasing the portico for his annual appearance with the Easter Bunny?
From Slate ● Apr. 28, 2026
This mammoth died nearby, but his carcass slumped into an ancient stream bed and was covered by sediment and eventually topped by the pits’ oozing asphalt, encasing and preserving his bones.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 22, 2026
This story has been updated to correct the name of the Denver exhibit that is chipping away at the rock encasing the T. rex fossil.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 3, 2024
In its place was a white marble tomb, encasing Dumbledore’s body and the table on which he had rested.
From "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling
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.
