From Old French 'blankete' (white woolen cloth), from Germanic *blank (white, bright) — a blanket was originally a 'little white thing.'
A large piece of woven fabric used as a covering for warmth, especially on a bed.
From Old French 'blankete' (a white woolen cloth, a small white cloth), diminutive of 'blanc' (white, bright, shining), from Frankish *blank (bright, shining, white, gleaming), from Proto-Germanic *blankaz (white, bright, shining, bare), from PIE *bʰleg- (to shine, to gleam, to burn). The original blankets were undyed white wool — the word literally meant 'little white thing.' As blankets came to be dyed in various colors, the word lost its chromatic specificity entirely, becoming simply 'a bed covering' regardless of color. The same Germanic root gives
A 'blanket' is etymologically a 'little white thing.' The same root gives us 'blank' (originally meaning white or pale — a blank page was a white page), 'blanch' (to turn white), and 'carte blanche' (literally 'white card,' meaning a blank check of authority). When Thomas Blanket, a 14th-century English weaver, mass-produced woolen bed coverings, folk etymology attributed the word to him — but the word predates him by a century.