shrink-wrap

shrink-wrap (countable and uncountable, plural shrink-wraps)

1. A plastic film that is used to protect an item and which during application contracts so it tightly enclose it.

   Please order another five rolls of shrink-wrap from the supply house.

2. The wrapping around an item that has been shrink-wrapped.

   Please don't damage the shrink-wrap when you are boxing up the items for shipment.

• shrinkwrap license

shrink-wrap (third-person singular simple present shrink-wraps, present participle shrink-wrapping, simple past and past participle shrink-wrapped)

1. To apply shrink-wrap to (an item).

   Coordinate terms: bubble-wrap, saran-wrap

   We spent all day shrink-wrapping boxes and now my feet hurt.

2. (paleontology, derogatory) To reconstruct an extinct creature known from its fossils by depicting it with minimal soft tissue, yielding a thinner and less accurate representation of the creature.

   Such shrink-wrapped models gave generations of schoolchildren mental images of dinosaurs that are probably much uglier and scrawnier than the creatures were in reality.