fig leaf

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A stylized representation of the leaf of a fig, used especially to conceal genitals depicted in works of art.
• noun Something that serves as a usually insufficient concealment or camouflage.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The leaf of a fig-tree; figuratively, a thin or partial covering, in allusion to the first covering of Adam and Eve; a makeshift.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• The leaf from a fig tree.
• An ornamental design shaped like the leaf of a fig tree, used in architecture; also, a design shaped like a fig leaf to cover genitalia in sculpture or paintings -- in reference to the biblical story in Genesis of Adam and Eve, who covered their privates with fig leaves.
• Anything used to conceal what is considered embarrassing or indecent. See sense 2.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A leaf of the fig plant.
• noun A representation of leaf of a fig plant used to cover the genitals of a nude figure in a work of art (alluding to Genesis iii 7, in which Adam and Eve use fig leaves to hide their nakedness).
• noun figuratively Anything used to conceal something undesirable or that one does not want to be discovered.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a covering consisting of anything intended to conceal something regarded as shameful
• noun a leaf from a fig tree