apron

noun

• 1a protective garment worn over the front of one’s clothes and tied at the back: a striped butcher’s apron [as modifier]:I reached into my apron pocket
• a garment similar to an apron that is worn as part of official dress, as by a bishop or Freemason.
• a sheet of lead worn to shield the body during an X-ray examination.

• 2a small area adjacent to another larger area or structure:a tiny apron of garden
• a hard-surfaced area on an airfield used for manoeuvring or parking aircraft: the pilot was instructed to park on the main apron
• (also apron stage) a projecting strip of stage for playing scenes in front of the curtain.
• US an area of asphalt where the drive of a house meets the road.
• the narrow strip of a boxing ring lying outside the ropes.

• 3 Geology an extensive outspread deposit of sediment, typically at the foot of a glacier or mountain.

• 4 [often as modifier] an endless conveyor made of overlapping plates:apron feeders bring coarse ore to a grinding mill