# sheaf
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English scheef, from Old English sċēaf, from Proto-West Germanic *skaub, from Proto-Germanic *skauba- (“sheaf”).
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”).

### Pronunciation

* enPR: shēf, IPA: /ʃiːf/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -iːf

### Noun

sheaf (plural sheaves or sheafs)
* A quantity of the stalks and ears of wheat, rye, or other grain, bound together; a bundle of grain or straw.
    Synonym: reap
** c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii], line 70:O, let me teach you how to knit again / This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf, / These broken limbs again into one body.
** 1697, Virgil, “The First Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 60, lines 429–430:Ev’n while the Reaper fills his greedy hands, / And binds the golden Sheafs in brittle bands
* Any collection of things bound together.
    Synonym: bundle
    a sheaf of paper
** 1986, John le Carré, A Perfect Spy:Together the two men march up the aisle and mount the dais, and while Muspole shakes hands with the chairman and his lady, the major draws a sheaf of notes from a briefcase and lays them on the table.
* A bundle of arrows sufficient to fill a quiver, or the allowance of each archer.
** 1700, John Dryden, Palamon and Arcite:The sheaf of arrows shook, and rattled in the case.
* A quantity of arrows, usually twenty-four.
** 1786, Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons, page 34: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.
* (mechanical) A sheave.
* (mathematics) 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 ${\mathcal {F}}$ whose sections are, in a technical sense, uniquely determined by their restrictions onto smaller sets: that is, given an open cover $\{U_{i}\}$ of $U$:
** If two sections over $U$ agree under restriction to every $U_{i}$, then the sections are the same.
** Given a family of sections $s_{i}\in {\mathcal {F}}(U_{i})$ such that all pairs $(s_{i},s_{j})$ agree under restriction to $U_{i}\cap U_{j}$, there is a (unique) section $s$ over $U$ whose restriction to $U_{i}$ is $s_{i}$.

#### Derived terms

* B-sheaf
* indsheaf
* sheaf theory
* sheafwise
* structure sheaf

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Verb

sheaf (third-person singular simple present sheafs, present participle sheafing, simple past and past participle sheafed)
* (transitive) To gather and bind into a sheaf; to make into sheaves
    to sheaf wheat
* (intransitive) To collect and bind cut grain, or the like; to make sheaves.
** c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], line 107:They that reap must sheaf and bind; Then to cart with Rosalind.

### Anagrams

* SFHEA, Shefa, SHAEF