[f. WINDING vbl. sb.1 + SHEET sb.1]
1. A sheet in which a corpse is wrapped for burial; a shroud.
c. 1420. ? Lydg., Assembly of Gods, 420. As he had bene a goste came in wyndyng shete.
1547. in Feuillerat, Revels Edw. VI. (1914), 21. One wyndyng shite of Incarnacion Lawnd strypide with crossis Crymson satten.
15[?]. Down by ane Rever, 54, in Dunbar’s Poems (S.T.S.), 306. Thy windene scheit is nocht in weir.
1603. Dekker, Wond. Year, C 3 b. A thousand Coarses, some standing bolt vpright in their knotted winding sheetes.
1624. Capt. J. Smith, Virginia, II. 35. They … rowle them in mats for their winding sheets.
1723–4. Burgh Rec. Stirling (1889), II. 357. A coffine … and a winning sheet.
1746. Hervey, Medit. (1767), 1. 72. Your Nobility arrayed in a Winding-sheet; your Grandeur mouldering in an Urn.
1869. Tozer, Highl. Turkey, II. 92. The spectre had sworn by his winding-sheet … that he would do him no harm.
Comb. 1603. Dekker, Wond. Year, D 2 b. These winding-sheete-weauers.
b. transf. and fig.
1593. Shaks., 3 Hen. VI., II. v. 114. These armes of mine shall be thy winding sheet: My heart (sweet Boy) shall be thy Sepulcher.
1625. Bacon, Ess., Viciss. Things (Arb.), 569. The great Winding-sheets, that burie all Things in Obliuion, are two; Deluges, and Earth-quakes.
1669. J. Owen, Serm. 2 Sam. xxiii. 5, Wks. 1851, IX. 414. Let us … be content to see all our comforts in their winding-sheet every day.
1757. Gray, Bard, 50. Weave the warp, and weave the woof, The winding-sheet of Edward’s race.
1817. Shelley, Rev. Islam, IX. xxii. Disturbing not the leaves which are her winding-sheet.
1864. Lowell, Fireside Trav., 147. Dead cedars, in winding-sheets of long gray moss.
1875. Manning, Mission Holy Ghost, ii. 59. He raised you from death, and loosed you from your winding-sheet of habitual sin.
2. A mass of solidified drippings of grease clinging to the side of a candle, resembling a sheet folded in creases, and regarded in popular superstition as an omen of death or calamity.
1708. Brit. Apollo, No. 17. 2/1. Letters, Winding Sheets, &c. in a Candle.
1819. Keats, Party of Lovers, 16. There’s a large cauliflower in each candle. A winding sheet.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. Aunt Martha. She … sees … gifts in her finger-nails, letters and winding-sheets in the candle.
1882. Mary Hallock Foote, in Century Mag., Nov., 113/1. The candles in tin sconces against the wall burned dim, with long winding-sheets clinging to them.
