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sheaf

Pronunciation: /ʃiːf/

The English word “sheaf” has 9 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A quantity of the stalks and ears of wheat, rye, or other grain, bound together; a bundle of grain or straw.
  2. Any collection of things bound together.
  3. A bundle of arrows sufficient to fill a quiver, or the allowance of each archer.
  4. A quantity of arrows, usually twenty-four.
  5. A sheave.
  6. If two sections over U agree under restriction to every U_i, then the sections are the same.
  7. Given a family of sections s_i∈ℱ(U_i) such that all pairs (s_i,s_j) agree under restriction to U_i∩U_j, there is a (unique) section s over U whose restriction to U_i is s_i.

verb

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

Etymology

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

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.