subs. phr. (common).—1. The sky: Defoe’s use of this simile may probably have been suggested by Shakespeare’s ‘blanket of the dark’ (MACBETH, i. 5.).
c. 1720. DEFOE, History of the Devil, quoted in Notes and Queries, 7 S., ii., 289; see also 7 S., ii., 492. We must be content till we come on the other side the BLUE BLANKET, and then we shall know the whole story.
1877. GREENWOOD, Under the Blue Blanket. The vagrant brotherhood have several slang terms for sleeping out in a field or meadow. It is called ‘snoozing in Hedge Square’; ‘dossing with the daisies’; and ‘lying under the BLUE BLANKET.’ [Fr. ‘coucher à l’hotel de l’Etoile,’—‘to sleep at the Star Hotel’; Fourb. copertore = sky = a covering or blanket].
2. (common).—A rough overcoat made of coarse pilot cloth.
