Forms: 5 cou-, covercle, -cule, -kell, -akylle, -kyl, cowerkylle, 8 coverkil, 4– covercle. [a. OF. covercle (mod.F. couvercle), ad. L. cooperculum a cover, f. cooperīre to COVER.]

1

  † 1.  A cover (of a vessel), a lid. Obs.

2

c. 1384.  Chaucer, H. Fame, II. 284. A little roundell … Paraventure as broad as a covercle.

3

1434.  E. E. Wills (1882), 102. A litill couerkell for his coppe ygilt.

4

1488.  Will of Fourmer (Somerset Ho.). A salt wtoute a couercle.

5

[1706.  Phillips (ed. Kersey), Covercle or Coverkil (old Word) a Cover, or Lid.]

6

  2.  Nat. Hist. Any natural structure, acting as a lid; an operculum. rare.

7

a. 1682.  Sir T. Browne, Tracts, 11 (L.). The covercle of a shell-fish.

8

1852.  Th. Ross, trans. Humboldt’s Trav., II. xxiv. 453. Opening the covercle of the lecythis.

9

1876.  Goldsmith’s Nat. Hist., II. 535, note. The hornets line their cells with silk, and stop them with a covercle of the same material.

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