sheaf

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See also: sheave

English[edit]

English Wikipedia has an article on:
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Etymology[edit]

From Middle English scheef, from Old English sċēaf, from Proto-West Germanic *skaub, from Proto-Germanic *skauba- (sheaf).

Pronunciation[edit]

  • enPR: shēf, IPA(key): /ʃiːf/
  • (file)
  • Rhymes: -iːf
Sheaves.

Noun[edit]

sheaf (plural sheaves or sheafs)

  1. A quantity of the stalks and ears of wheat, rye, or other grain, bound together; a bundle of grain or straw.
    Synonym: reap
  2. Any collection of things bound together.
    Synonym: bundle
    a sheaf of paper
    • 1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy:
      Together the two men march up the aisle and mount the dais, and while Muspole shakes hands with the chairman and his lady, the major draws a sheaf of notes from a briefcase and lays them on the table.
  3. A bundle of arrows sufficient to fill a quiver, or the allowance of each archer.
    • 1700, John Dryden, Palamon and Arcite:
      The sheaf of arrows shook, and rattled in the case.
  4. A quantity of arrows, usually twenty-four.
    • 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 34:
      Arrows were anciently made of reeds, afterwards of cornel wood, and occasionally of every species of wood: but according to Roger Ascham, ash was best; arrows were reckoned by sheaves, a sheaf consisted of twenty-four arrows.
  5. (mechanical) A sheave.
  6. (mathematics) An abstract construct in topology that associates data to the open sets of a topological space, together with well-defined restrictions from larger to smaller open sets, subject to the condition that compatible data on overlapping open sets corresponds, via the restrictions, to a unique datum on the union of the open sets.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

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Verb[edit]

sheaf (third-person singular simple present sheafs, present participle sheafing, simple past and past participle sheafed)

  1. (transitive) To gather and bind into a sheaf; to make into sheaves
    to sheaf wheat
  2. (intransitive) To collect and bind cut grain, or the like; to make sheaves.

Anagrams[edit]