sheaf
Americannoun
plural
sheaves-
one of the bundles in which cereal plants, as wheat, rye, etc., are bound after reaping.
-
any bundle, cluster, or collection.
a sheaf of papers.
verb (used with object)
noun
-
a bundle of reaped but unthreshed corn tied with one or two bonds
-
a bundle of objects tied together
-
the arrows contained in a quiver
verb
Other Word Forms
- sheaflike adjective
Etymology
Origin of sheaf
before 900; Middle English shefe (noun), Old English schēaf; cognate with Dutch schoof sheaf, German Schaub wisp of straw, Old Norse skauf tail of a fox
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Fittingly, the four-and-a-half hours leading up to them feel like a sheaf of love letters.
From Los Angeles Times
He grabbed the sheaf of papers he had been working on earlier and shoved them into Edward Ashton’s hands.
From Literature
Perhaps it had been lost in a comical mix-up involving two identical sheaves of paper, in which Penelope’s notes were mistakenly swapped for, say, a collection of soup recipes.
From Literature
Same story in Lombok, Indonesia, where cars floated like buoys, and in eastern China, where an inland typhoon-like storm sent furniture blowing down the streets like so many sheafs of paper.
From Salon
Yehorov, pulling a sheaf of stage notes from his pocket, dropped a container of toothpicks that hit the floor and scattered everywhere.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
