| Definitions | | sheaf |
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noun (pl=sheaves)
- A quantity of the stalks and ears of wheat, rye, or other grain, bound together; a bundle of grain or straw.
- Quotations
- 1593: O, let me teach you how to knit again This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf, These broken limbs again into one body. — William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, Act V, Scene III, line 70.
- The reaper fills his greedy hands, And binds the golden sheaves in brittle bands. -- Dryden.
- Any collection of things bound together; a bundle.
- a of paper
- A bundle of arrows sufficient to fill a quiver, or the allowance of each archer.
- Quotations
- The sheaf of arrows shook and rattled in the case. -- Dryden.
- (unit) A quantity of arrows, usually twenty-four.
- Quotations
- 1786: 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. — Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 34.
- (Mechanical) A sheave.
- (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. W:Sheaf (mathematics), W
verb to sheaf
- (transitive) To gather and bind into a sheaf; to make into sheaves; as, to sheaf wheat.
- (intransitive) To collect and bind cut grain, or the like; to make sheaves.
- Quotations
- 1599: They that reap must sheaf and bind; Then to cart with Rosalind. — William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act III, Scene II, line 107.
Etymology: sceaf
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Full Definition of sheaf
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