integument

in•teg•u•ment (in-TEG-yuh-muhnt)  n

Definition:
1. a natural covering, as a skin, shell, or rind
2. any covering, coating, enclosure

Origin:
1611; from L. integumentem "a covering," from in- "in, upon" + tegere "to cover"

Related:
Synonyms: covering, coat, envelope, hide, pelt, skin, tegument
Related Words: from tegere " to cover": stegosaurus, detect, protect

Sentence Examples:
• The parent whose sole answer to criticism or remonstrance is "I have a right to do what I like with my own child!" is the only impossible parent. His moral integument is too thick to be pierced with any shaft however keen. To him we can only say as Jacques did to Orlando, "God be with you; let's meet as little as we can." - Children's Rights and Others, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Nora Smith

• He is encased in a protective shell of ignorance and insensibility which keeps him from being exhausted and confused by this too complicated world; but that integument blinds him at the same time to many of his nearest and highest interests. -Reason in Common Sense, George Santayana

• We don garment after garment, as if we grew like exogenous plants by addition without. Our outside and often thin and fanciful clothes are our epidermis, or false skin, which partakes not of our life, and may be stripped off here and there without fatal injury; our thicker garments, constantly worn, are our cellular integument, or cortex; but our shirts are our liber, or true bark, which cannot be removed without girdling and so destroying the man. -Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau

The Storyline
Her integument of self-composure finally punctured.

Sources: Dictionary.com, Online Etymology

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