From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtarpaulintar‧pau‧lin /tɑːˈpɔːlɪn $ tɑːrˈpɒː-/ especially British English, tarp /tɑːp $ tɑːrp/ American English noun [countable, uncountable] DHTTa large heavy cloth or piece of thick plastic that water will not pass through, used to keep rain off things
Examples from the Corpus
tarpaulin• Yanto could see something behind the boxes, covered by a tarpaulin.• He had spread a tarpaulin over the duckboards, and on top of it they dumped blankets from the ambulance.• He kept a Land-Rover, its distributor removed, parked under a tarpaulin in the brush behind the house.• Players flee for cover and tarpaulin goes back out.• A second-hand railway tarpaulin is stronger but more expensive.• Spattered tarpaulins and paint cans were stacked in a corner.• The Arvin sentries in front of the politicians' houses ducked into their tarpaulin shelters.• It is understood to have started when tarpaulin sheeting blew on to heaters drying a new resin coating on repair work. 