the veil: the heavy, richly woven curtain hung across the sanctuary that sealed off the innermost room where God's presence dwelt.
This word names one particular object: the inner veil of the tabernacle, and later of the temple. It hung across the sacred tent and divided it into two rooms, the outer Holy Place, which the priests entered daily, and the inner Most Holy Place, where the ark of the covenant stood and God's presence was said to rest.
The veil marked the most guarded boundary in Israel's worship. Only the high priest could pass behind it, only once a year on the Day of Atonement, and even then only with sacrificial blood and a cloud of incense. To go behind it at the wrong time was to risk death. So the word carries the whole idea of a protected threshold between a holy God and the people who could not simply walk up to him.
It was also no flimsy thing. It was woven of blue, purple, and scarlet yarn with the winged guardian figures worked into it, and it hung on posts. English calls it a veil, but it was a substantial, decorated barrier stretched across a room, not a light covering worn on the body.