sheaf

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sheaf

(shēf)

n. pl. sheaves (shēvz)

1. A bundle of cut stalks of grain or similar plants bound with straw or twine.

2. A collection of items held or bound together: a sheaf of printouts.

3. An archer's quiver.

tr.v. sheafed, sheaf·ing, sheafs

To gather and bind into a bundle.

[Middle English sheef, from Old English scēaf.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

sheaf

(ʃiːf)

n, pl sheaves (ʃiːvz)

1. (Agriculture) a bundle of reaped but unthreshed corn tied with one or two bonds

2. a bundle of objects tied together

3. (Archery) the arrows contained in a quiver

(tr) to bind or tie into a sheaf

[Old English sceaf, related to Old High German skoub sheaf, Old Norse skauf tail, Gothic skuft tuft of hair]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

sheaf

(ʃif)

n., pl. sheaves.

1. one of the bundles in which cereal plants are bound after reaping.

2. any bundle, cluster, or collection: a sheaf of papers.

[before 900; Middle English shefe (n.), Old English schēaf, c. Old Saxon skōf, Old High German scoub sheaf, wisp of straw, Old Norse skauf tail of a fox]

sheaf′like`, adj.

Sheaf

a collection of things bound together; a large bundle; a cluster of flowers; leaves. See also garb, gavel.

Examples: sheaf of arrows, 1318; of banners, 1863; of barley, 1796; of beans, 1862; of blooms, 1882; of painting brushes, 1855; of columns (of liquid), 1857; of corn, 1717; of fire, 1811; of telegraph forms, 1888; of glass (bundle of six plates), 1402; of grain; of hemp; of jets of flame; of jets of water; of letters, 1865; of librarians; of lines (geometry); of rain, 1888; of rays (light rays); of reeds, 1846; of rye; of snakes, 1631; of spears, 1805; of steel (30 pieces), 1495; of timber, 1534.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun

sheaf - a package of several things tied together for carrying or storing

bundle

bale - a large bundle bound for storage or transport

pack - a bundle (especially one carried on the back)

parcel, package - a wrapped container

swag - a bundle containing the personal belongings of a swagman

sheaf

noun bundle, mass, pile, bunch, stack, heap, wodge (informal) He took out a sheaf of papers and leafed through them.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

حُزْمَه، غُمْر

snopsvazek

negstak

Bündel Garbe

gavilla

gerbe

kéve

knippi

covone fascio

層

층

pėdas

kūlissainītissaišķis

schoof

сноп пачка пучок связка

snop

demet deste

捆

sheaf

[ʃiːf] N (sheaves (pl)) (Agr) → gavilla f; [of arrows] → haz m; [of papers] → fajo m, manojo m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

sheaf

[ˈʃiːf] [sheaves] (pl) n → gerbe f

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

sheaf

n pl <sheaves> (of wheat, corn) → Garbe f; (of arrows etc, papers, notes) → Bündel nt

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

sheaf

[ʃiːf] n (sheaves (pl)) (Agr) → covone m; (of papers) → fascio

sheaf

(ʃiːf) – plural sheaves (ʃiːvz) – noun

a bundle usually tied or held together. a sheaf of corn/notes.

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References in classic literature ?

The reaping-machine left the fallen corn behind it in little heaps, each heap being of the quantity for a sheaf; and upon these the active binders in the rear laid their hands--mainly women, but some of them men in print shirts, and trousers supported round their waists by leather straps, rendering useless the two buttons behind, which twinkled and bristled with sunbeams at every movement of each wearer, as if they were a pair of eyes in the small of his back.

From the sheaf last finished she draws a handful of ears, patting their tips with her left palm to bring them even.

The movements of the other women were more or less similar to Tess's, the whole bevy of them drawing together like dancers in a quadrille at the completion of a sheaf by each, every one placing her sheaf on end against those of the rest, till a shock, or "stitch" as it was here called, of ten or a dozen was formed.

Tess, having quickly eaten her own meal, beckoned to her eldest sister to come and take away the baby, fastened her dress, put on the buff gloves again, and stooped anew to draw a bond from the last completed sheaf for the tying of the next.

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And Sir Richard's fair lady came forward and with her own hands gave each yeoman a bow and a sheaf.

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We knocked the head out of an empty hogshead and hoisted this hogshead to the flat roof of the chapel, where we clamped it down fast, poured in gunpowder till it lay loosely an inch deep on the bottom, then we stood up rockets in the hogshead as thick as they could loosely stand, all the different breeds of rockets there are; and they made a portly and imposing sheaf, I can tell you.

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The Niger, after running northward as far as that city, sweeps around, like an immense water-jet from some fountain, and falls into the Atlantic in a broad sheaf. In the elbow thus formed the country is of varied character, sometimes luxuriantly fertile, and sometimes extremely bare; fields of maize succeeded by wide spaces covered with broom-corn and uncultivated plains.

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An ax will be useful, a hunting spear not bad, but a three-pronged fork will be best of all: a Frenchman is no heavier than a sheaf of rye.

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Thomson took his place in the far corner of the room and bent over a sheaf of papers.

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We gathered in with its sheaf of fragrant days the choicest harvest of childhood.

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Each district, under the new system, had its flag, its bottle of ink, its sheaf of documents tabulated and filed for reference in a drawer, so that by looking under M or S, as the case might be, you had all the facts with respect to the Suffrage organizations of that county at your fingers' ends.

She was terribly afraid that one of these days Mary, the young woman who typified so many rather sentimental and enthusiastic ideas, who had some sort of visionary existence in white with a sheaf of lilies in her hand, would announce, in a jaunty way, that she was about to be married.