sheaf
noun
- bundle of grain
- mathematical object
verb
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L27035 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ʃiːf/
noun
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”).
- A quantity of the stalks and ears of wheat, rye, or other grain, bound together; a bundle of grain or straw.
“O, let me teach you how to knit again This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf, These broken limbs again into one body.”
“And then in haste her bow'r she leaves, With Thestylis to bind the sheaves; Or if the earlier season lead To the tann'd haycock in the mead.”
- Any collection of things bound together.
“a sheaf of paper”
“Max found himself accepting an impressive sheaf of money, more than he had ever touched before, and the books were taken from him before he could think of another objection.”
- A bundle of arrows sufficient to fill a quiver, or the allowance of each archer.
“The sheaf of arrows shook, and rattled in the case.”
- A quantity of arrows, usually twenty-four.
“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.”
- A sheave.
- An abstract construct in topology that associates data to the open sets of a topological space (i.e. a presheaf) in such a way so as to make the local and global data compatible, generalizing the situation of functions, fiber bundles, manifold structure, etc. on a topological space. Formally, a presheaf ℱ whose sections are, in a technical sense, uniquely determined by their restrictions onto smaller sets: that is, given an open cover U_i of U:
- An abstract construct in topology that associates data to the open sets of a topological space (i.e. a presheaf) in such a way so as to make the local and global data compatible, generalizing the situation of functions, fiber bundles, manifold structure, etc. on a topological space. Formally, a presheaf ℱ whose sections are, in a technical sense, uniquely determined by their restrictions onto smaller sets: that is, given an open cover U_i of U:
verb
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”).
- To gather and bind into a sheaf; to make into sheaves
“to sheaf wheat”
- To collect and bind cut grain, or the like; to make sheaves.
“They that reap must sheaf and bind; Then to cart with Rosalind.”