Word of the Day: Swaddle
swaddle
swad-dle / swŏd-l
noun
1. a long strip of cloth used to securely wrap around a someone
I begged them to uncase me: no, no, say they; and upon that carried me to one of their houses, and put me to bed in all my swaddles.
Joseph Addison, 1672 – 1719
verb
1. to wrap a newborn baby in long strips of fabric to provide a feeling of security and hinder movement
If you decide to swaddle, only do it from birth, and swaddle your baby every time they sleep, day or night.
Lorna Marsh, “What are the dos and don’ts of swaddling?”, Baby Centre, www.babycentre.co.uk/x7660/what-are-the-dos-and-donts-of-swaddling, accessed December 19, 2022
2. to wrap, as with cloth
My heart born naked was swaddled in lullabies.
From “And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos” by John Berger, 1926 – 2017
3. to wrap in bandages
And if some one prescribes for him a course of dietetics, and tells him that he must swathe and swaddle his head, and all that sort of thing, he replies at once that he has no time to be ill, and that he sees no good in a life which is spent in nursing his disease to the neglect of his customary employment; and therefore bidding good-bye to this sort of physician, he resumes his ordinary habits, and either gets well and lives and does his business, or, if his constitution falls, he dies and has no more trouble.
From “The Republic” by Plato, 427 BC – 347 BC