Know Your Verbs #100 - Verb: "Cover"
14:47 Share

This is the verb "to cover", which can just mean to place something over something else. But watch until the end and learn six other ways to use it. Hi everybody, welcome back to Know Your Verbs. My name is Alisha and in this episode we're going to talk about the verb "cover". Let's get started. First, let's start with the basic definition of "to cover". "To cover" means to lay or spread something over something else. Here are some examples:

Cover the pot and cook for 30 minutes. She covered her legs with a blanket. Okay, let's take a look at the conjugations for this verb. Present tense: cover, covers Past tense: covered Past participle: covered Progressive: covering

Okay, now let's take a look at some additional meanings for this verb. The first additional meaning is to guard, like from an attack or from an opponent. Here are some examples. Cover me, I'm going in. Our troops will cover your team as you advance.

Okay, this use of cover is used a lot in like action movies and in war movies and in other types of situations where there's fighting that's going on. So maybe if you know somebody or if you yourself were a member of the military, you might also have heard this word a lot. So to cover in this sense means to guard or to provide some kind of extra protection

protection against an aggressor or some kind of dangerous situation. So in the first example sentence here, we see the expression "cover me" which you might have seen in a lot of action movies before too. So "cover me" means please provide extra protection for me or please do something that will help me be a little more guarded. So when somebody in an action movie says,

cover me, it's usually because they're going to run into the action in some way and they want their teammates to maybe try to shoot at the enemies or to do something that is going to help them be a little bit more protective.

So that's what this cover means. It means like please guard me or please protect me, provide extra protection in some way. This is also true for the second example sentence. Our troops will cover your team as you advance. This means we will guard you or we will provide extra protection for you as you move forward. So this use of cover is most commonly used in fighting and in action-related situations.

Okay, the second additional meaning is to spread over something or to be spread over something. Here are some examples. Coffee stains covered his shirt. She covered her french fries with a spicy sauce.

Okay, so this use of cover is a little bit similar to the basic meaning we talked about earlier, but this sense of cover sounds like something that's kind of spread around like very quickly or without a specific pattern in mind or something that is kind of created by accident. So for example, in the first one, coffee stains covered his shirt. It sounds like his shirt has lots and lots of different colors.

coffee stains on it all over his shirt, but he didn't put them there on purpose. So with the basic definition of cover, it sounds like we do something on purpose, right? Like we cover a pot with a lid or we cover our legs with a blanket, right? This sense of cover is more like the shirt just happens to have lots and lots of coffee stains on it. And we use the word cover to show that it's completely or almost completely covered, almost completely changed with coffee stains.

The second example here is similar. She covered her french fries with a spicy sauce. Sounds like she just very quickly put the sauce on top of her french fries. She spread that very, very quickly over her french fries. So there's no specific pattern

pattern, but it's more like we're just, we want to focus on the spreading of things. We want to focus on just kind of this sense of the french fries are just completely gone underneath the spicy sauce. So you might see covered used in this way to mean that there's a lot of something or that something is kind of spread without a specific pattern in mind on top of something else. Additional meaning number three is to deal with or to relate to. Here are some examples.

Essential information for new employees will be covered in the orientation. We'll cover a new grammar point in the next lecture. Okay, this use of the verb "to cover" is often used in informational situations where we need to teach someone something. You might see this used in YouTube videos. You probably see this used in school settings, in classrooms, in lectures,

in other types of situations where someone needs to teach someone else something. In the first example, we see an employee orientation. In this situation, you can expect that there's going to be a lot of new information. So when we say there's going to be a lot of information covered in the orientation, it means it's going to include or is going to relate to a lot of important information. So this use of cover is commonly used in teaching style situations.

The same is true in the second example. We're going to cover a new grammar point in the next lecture. That means we're going to get information related to a new grammar point in the next lecture. So this use of cover means to relate to some information or to deal with some information. Again, a big tip here is that it's usually used in situations where we need to teach someone else something.

Okay, the fourth additional meaning for this video is to be a replacement or a substitute for someone. Here are some examples. Can you cover my shift on Saturday? I need to take the day off. My teammates covered my work for me while I was gone.

Okay, so this use of cover is used when we need to be away from our responsibilities for a period of time. In the first example sentence, "Can you cover my shift on Saturday? I need to take the day off." It sounds like we are asking someone else, "Can you please take care of my responsibilities on Saturday?" Which means, "I have a shift on Saturday. I have to work on Saturday, but I cannot be here. Can you please do my tasks for me?" So this use of

cover relates to shifting your responsibilities to someone else. So when you say, can you cover my shift? It's asking that other person to do your tasks and take care of your responsibilities for you. The same thing is true in the second example sentence. My teammates covered my work for me while I was gone. That is a past tense example where someone's teammates

took care of that person's tasks during the time the person was not at work. So when we use this use of cover, it's typically related to errands, tasks, jobs, responsibilities, and so on. So those are kind of some hint words that you can use to help you identify this use of cover. Okay, great. With those additional meanings in mind, now let's take a look at a couple variations with this verb.

Okay, the first variation I want to talk about in this video is "to cover up." This means to hide or conceal something. Here are some examples: The company tried to cover up the scandal. I don't know how I'm going to cover up this mistake.

Okay, so this expression, to cover up, means that you are trying to hide something or to conceal something and it's often something that is bad. So we usually don't use cover up something for a nice secret or for a positive secret.

It's usually because we have some problem or we've made some kind of mistake and we're trying to make sure nobody else knows about it. So when you see cover up used in the news to talk about company scandals and so on, it's because something bad happened and rather than try to fix the problem or talk about the problem, someone tried to hide.

that information. So cover up generally has a very, very negative image associated with it. So if you want to use cover up, please make sure that you know this. It is not used for good secrets, only for hiding usually bad secrets. Okay, the next variation is to cover one's tracks. This means to hide evidence of one's movements. Here are some examples. The hacker tried to cover his tracks by deleting his internet history.

"The thief didn't do a very good job of covering his tracks. The police found him right away." Okay, so this expression, "to cover one's tracks" or "to cover someone's tracks" means to hide the evidence of something that you did. So this can mean digital evidence, like in the first example sentence where a hacker deletes his internet history, and it can also mean physical evidence. So this expression

comes from animal tracks. So animal tracks refers to the footprints that animals leave in the dirt when they move through the forest, for example. So if we follow, if we look at those animal prints, the animal footprints, we can find where the animal went, right? The same thing is true with people in this case, but maybe

people don't actually leave footprints so much. Instead, they leave other kinds of evidence. So that's what this expression is really about, looking for those kinds of small pieces of evidence that tell us what a person did. So in the second example sentence with the thief, the thief didn't do a very good job of covering his tracks, might mean that maybe the thief was seen on a security camera, or maybe the stuff that the thief stole was easily found on another marquee

So you can see that this is kind of a different way of tracking a person. So when we use cover one's tracks, it often relates to something bad that happened, like some kind of criminal activity, like the thief in the second example sentence and the hacker in the first example sentence here. So if you're trying to cover your tracks, it's probably because you're trying to hide from someone or something.

Though there are some situations where maybe you need to escape or someone needs to escape from a bad situation and they might want to cover their tracks there too. Most of the time when we see it used in the news today, it's because someone is doing something a little bit shady or maybe that's not quite legal. So you'll probably see this used in the news from time to time, but mostly to talk about criminal activity. So now with these variations and additional meanings in our mind, let's take a look at the review section for this video.

I'll introduce two example sentences that are both correct but that use different meanings of the verb. Choose the example sentence that expresses the appropriate meaning. Today's class will cover materials from chapters 1, 2, and 3 in your textbook. Cover the soup and cook for 30 minutes. Which sentence uses the deal with or relate to meaning of cover?

The answer is the first sentence. This lecture will cover materials from chapters 1, 2, and 3 of your textbook.

That means this lecture is going to include or relate to the materials from those chapters in your textbook. So a big hint with this meaning of cover is that it's related to teaching someone information. So the second example sentence is about cooking, so it has nothing to do with teaching someone how to do something. The first example sentence means to relate to information. Great, let's move on to the second review question. The yard was covered with leaves.

Cover me. I'm gonna try to break down the door. Which sentence uses the "to guard" meaning of "cover"?

The answer is the second sentence, "Cover me. I'm going to try to break down the door." This is a request for extra protection for someone to guard the speaker. So we know that this is the case. We know that this means to guard or to cover because it's in kind of a fighting or a battle type situation. So this is a big hint that the speaker is asking for extra protection or asking for someone to guard him or her. "I know you broke the glass. Don't try to cover it up." "He covered his mother's shoulders with a shawl."

Which sentence uses the "to hide" or "conceal" meaning of "cover"?

The answer is the first example sentence. I know you broke the glass. Don't try to cover it up. So, to cover something up means to try to hide or to conceal something, usually something bad that happened. So, in this case, we see someone broke a glass, and the speaker is accusing them, saying, I know it was you. Don't try to cover it up, meaning don't try to hide that information. So, something negative happened, and we see that

cover up expression used after it. That's a big hint that the other person is maybe trying to hide a mistake or some other kind of wrong behavior. So with this in mind, let's continue on to our last review question. We'll cover some new information next week. My ice cream is covered with delicious caramel sauce. Which sentence uses the "to spread over something" meaning of "cover"?

The answer is the second sentence. "My ice cream is covered in delicious caramel sauce." So this sounds like the ice cream is just under so much caramel sauce. There's not a specific pattern. It wasn't just placed there gently. It's like somebody just went, "Ahh!" and put so much caramel sauce on top of the ice cream. So it was spread all over it, all on top of that ice cream. That's the idea with this use of the

Great, that's the end of the review section and the end of this episode of Know Your Verbs. In this episode, we covered lots of information about the verb to cover, so I hope that you found a lot of new ways to use this very versatile verb. Thanks very much for watching this episode of Know Your Verbs, and I will see you again next time. Bye!