Bedquilt

//ˈbɛd.kwɪlt// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A quilt used for spreading over a bed, as the topmost layer of bedclothes.

    "Five hundred years ago, that ugly whirl of muddy surf, 100 square miles in area, was a fruitful field, "50 Villages upon it, one Town, several Monasteries and 50,000 souls:" till on Christmas midnight A.D. 1277, the winds and the storm-rains having got to their height, Ocean and Ems did, "about midnight," undermine the place, folded it over like a friable bedquilt or monstrous doomed griddle-cake, and swallowed it all away."

Example

More examples

"Five hundred years ago, that ugly whirl of muddy surf, 100 square miles in area, was a fruitful field, "50 Villages upon it, one Town, several Monasteries and 50,000 souls:" till on Christmas midnight A.D. 1277, the winds and the storm-rains having got to their height, Ocean and Ems did, "about midnight," undermine the place, folded it over like a friable bedquilt or monstrous doomed griddle-cake, and swallowed it all away."

Etymology

From bed + quilt.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.