on the blanket Definition

blanket
noun

1. A thick covering of wool or other material, used to cover beds or for wrapping a person in for warmth.
2. A thick layer or mass which covers or obscures something.

Example: a blanket of fog

adj

1. (used before the noun it describes) general; applying to or covering all cases, people, etc.

Example: blanket coverage
Example: a blanket rule
Thesaurus: comprehensive, absolute, all-inclusive, unconditional, sweeping, all-embracing.

verb blanketed, blanketing

1. To cover something with, or as if with, a blanket.

Thesaurus: envelop, cover, conceal, cloak, cloud, hide, mask, obscure, eclipse, adumbrate.
2. To keep it quiet, suppress it, or cover it up.

Form: blanket something out (often)
3. To cover or apply something in a general, comprehensive or indiscriminate way.

Idiom: on the blanket

Applied to IRA prisoners in jail: wearing blankets instead of prison clothes, as a protest against their having criminal rather than political status.

Idiom: born on the wrong side of the blanket

Illegitimately; out of wedlock.

Etymology: 14c, originally meaning ‘rough, undyed or white woollen fabric'; from French blankete, from blanc white.