wrapper
Americannoun
-
a person or thing that wraps.
-
a covering or cover.
-
a long, loose outer garment.
-
a loose bathrobe; negligee.
-
British. book jacket.
-
the tobacco leaf used for covering a cigar.
-
Armor. a supplementary beaver reinforcing the chin and mouth area of an armet of the 15th century.
noun
-
the cover, usually of paper or cellophane, in which something is wrapped
-
a dust jacket of a book
-
the ripe firm tobacco leaf forming the outermost portion of a cigar and wound around its body
-
a loose negligee or dressing gown, esp in the 19th century
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of wrapper
late Middle English word dating back to 1425–75; see origin at wrap, -er 1
Explanation
A wrapper is any kind of loose cover that encloses something that's for sale. The brightly colored paper that covers your candy bar is a wrapper. If you wrap something in foil or plastic to sell it, you've made a wrapper. Many wrappers are factory-made and sealed, like the wrapper on your ice cream bar, while others protect your fast-food burger or deli sandwich. In some places, people call a dressing gown or robe a wrapper too. No matter how you use the word, a wrapper wraps something. Its earliest use, in the 15th century, was as "a piece of fine cloth used to wrap bread."
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.
Automated conveyor belts shuttle boxes of wine along to a massive pallet wrapper, like a giant cling film dispenser twirling the pallets around ready for shipment.
From BBC • May 18, 2026
He bent down, picked up a straw wrapper and disposed of it in the nearest trash can, then kept walking.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 28, 2026
“You’ve got people coming in and doing things with the ETF wrapper that were probably not foreseen in any way.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 23, 2026
While lonvo-z uses the same lipid nanoparticle wrapper as nex-z, it targets a different gene.
From Barron's • Nov. 7, 2025
He took a single bite of each and lined them up on the wrinkled burger wrapper.
From "Caterpillar Summer" by Gillian McDunn
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.
