cover [ME] Cover comes via French couvrir from Latin cooperire, formed from co(m)-, an intensive indicating ‘entirely’, and operire ‘cover, conceal’. Covert [ME] meaning hidden comes from the same root. A coverlet [ME] is not a little cover, but comes from the Old French cover-lit ‘bed covering’. Coverage [LME] first appears in the sense of a charge for having a booth at a fair, so not unlike our cover charge [E20th], but then disappears to re-emerge in the USA in the early 20th century.