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sheaf

UK/ʃiːf/US/ʃiːf/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,857 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: sheaves

A sheaf is a bundle of cut stalks tied together. A sheaf of corn, stack the sheaves, a sheaf of papers.

Sheaves were stood together in stooks to dry before threshing, which is one of the oldest images of harvest there is and vanished within a generation of the combine. The plural is sheaves. A sheaf of papers is the surviving everyday use.

Definitions of sheaf

  1. 1nounsheafA bundle of cut stalks tied together.C2

    “The farmer tied the wheat into a sheaf and stood it in the field to dry.”

sheaf is a bundle.

Where it comes from

Old English sceaf names the bundle, from a Germanic root meaning to shove or push together.

  1. Proto-Germanic

    *skauba- — sheaf

  2. Proto-West Germanic

    *skaub

  3. Old English

    sċēaf

  4. Middle English

    scheef

  5. English, today

    sheaf

From Middle English scheef, from Old English sċēaf, from Proto-West Germanic skaub, from Proto-Germanic skauba- (“sheaf”). 2 Akin to West Frisian skeaf (“sheaf”), Dutch schoof (“sheaf”), German Schaub, Old Norse skauf (“a fox's tail”). Compare further Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌿𐍆𐍄 (“hair of the head”), German Schopf (“tuft”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

sheaf in the wild

  • The field of mathematics that studies sheaves is called sheaf theory.

    Sheaf (mathematics)

  • The definition of coherent sheaves is made with reference to a sheaf of rings that codifies this geometric information.

    Coherent sheaf

  • The standard case is when X is a scheme and O its structure sheaf.

    Sheaf of modules

  • If X is the prime spectrum of a ring R, then any R-module defines an OX-module (called an associated sheaf) in a natural way.

    Sheaf of modules

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.