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A plant which aids, shelters, or protects another plant in its growth, as those which are used for nurse crops.

A house kept warm to shelter tender plants and shrubs from the cold air; a place in which the plants of warmer climates may be reared, and fruits ripened.

A structure intended or used as a habitation or shelter for animals of any kind; but especially, a building or edifice for the habitation of man; a dwelling place, a mansion. Houses are built to live in; not to look on. Bacon. Bees with smoke and doves with noisome stench Are from their hives and houses driven away. Sh…

Destitute of the shelter of a house; shelterless; homeless; as, a houseless wanderer.

The act of putting or receiving under shelter; the state of dwelling in a habitation.

An open shed for sheltering cattle, or protecting produce, etc., from the weather. Brande & C.

A cover; a shelter; a protection. [Archaic] Carew. C. Kingsley.

The act of affording shelter in winter. [Obs.]

To inclose or place in the midst of; to surround or shelter; as, a house imbosomed in a grove. "Villages imbosomed soft in trees." Thomson. The Father infinite, By whom in bliss imbosomed sat the Son. Milton.

en also imprese and impress.] My impresa to your lordship; a swain Flying to a laurel for shelter. J. Webster.

influence exerted from without. The stamp and clear impression of good sense. Cowper. To shelter us from impressions of weather, we must spin, we must weave, we must build. Barrow.

Shameful; disgraceful; ignominious; as, inglorious flight, defeat, etc. Inglorious shelter in an alien land. J. Philips.

Affording no shelter or sustenance; barren; desert; bleak; cheerless; wild. "Inhospitable wastes." Blair. -- In*hos"pi*ta*ble*mess, n. -- In*hos"pi*ta*bly, adv.

A place of shelter; hence, dwelling; habitation; residence; abode. [Obs.] Chaucer. Therefore with me ye may take up your inn For this same night. Spenser.

A sheltered place; esp., a place; protected from the wind by some object; the side sheltered from the wind; shelter; protection; as, the lee of a mountain, an island, or a ship. We lurked under lee. Morte d'Arthure. Desiring me to take shelter in his lee. Tyndall.

A leafy shelter; a place covered with foliage. [Obs.] Behind the mill, under a levesel. Chaucer.

bivalve shells, allied to the mussels, and remarkable for their ability to bore holes for shelter, in solid limestone, shells, etc. Called also Lithophagus.

A shelter in which one may rest; as: (a) A shed; a rude cabin; a hut; as, an Indian's lodge. Chaucer. Their lodges and their tentis up they gan bigge [to build]. Robert of Brunne. O for a lodge in some vast wilderness! Cowper.

A dwelling place, -- whether a part or whole of a house or other shelter. [Obs.] In my Father's house are many mansions. John xiv. 2. These poets near our princes sleep, And in one grave their mansions keep. Den

while mewing; a coop for fattening fowls; hence, any inclosure; a place of confinement or shelter; -- in the latter sense usually in the plural. Full many a fat partrich had he in mewe. Chaucer. Forthcoming from her darksome mew. Spenser. Violets in their secret mews. Wordsworth.