Also 6–9 cloke. [f. prec.]
1. trans. To cover with or wrap in a cloak.
1514. Barclay, Cyt. & Uplondyshm. (1847), p. lxi. This lustie Codrus was cloked for the rayne.
1752. Fielding, Amelia, XI. vi. She cloked herself up as well as she could.
1818. B. O’Reilly, Greenland, 209. A frowning berg, deeply cloaked with mist.
1862. Macm. Mag., Sept., 424/2. Puffs and motions as of shadowy spirits cloaking themselves.
2. fig. † a. To cover, protect, shelter. Obs.
1540–54. Croke, Ps. (1844), 42. His wyngs shall cloke thee from all fear.
1590. Marlowe, Massacre Paris, II. vi. Navarre, that cloaks them underneath his wings.
b. To cover over, conceal; to disguise, mask.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., Introd. vi. The lyght of trouth I lacke cunnyng to cloke.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. i. 21. To cloke her guile with sorrow.
1741. Butler, Serm., Wks. 1874, II. 263. Men cloak their extravagance to themselves under the notion of liberality.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. vi. 449. His refusal was cloked under a show of feudal loyalty.
1871. Palgrave, Lyr. Poems, 17. ’Neath smiles her fear she cloak’d.
† 3. a. trans. To wear the semblance of, put on, assume. b. intr. To pretend, dissemble. Obs.
1535. Joye, Apol. Tindale, 44. Yf he had had siche a godly zele as he here cloketh.
1572. Forrest, Theophilus, 651. Christian folke, Of which none am I, how eaver I cloake.
