different between sheaf vs heaf

English

Etymology

From Middle English scheef, from Old English s??af, 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 ???????????????????? (skuft, “hair of the head”), German Schopf (“tuft”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: sh?f, IPA^(key): /?i?f/
• Rhymes: -i?f

Noun

sheaf (plural sheaves or sheafs)

1. A quantity of the stalks and ears of wheat, rye, or other grain, bound together; a bundle of grain or straw.

   Synonym: reap

   • 1593, William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, 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.

   • c. 1697, John Dryden, “Georgic I”, in The Works of Virgil:

     E’en while the reaper fills his greedy hands, / And binds the golden sheaves in brittle bands

2. Any collection of things bound together.

   Synonym: bundle
3. A bundle of arrows sufficient to fill a quiver, or the allowance of each archer.
4. 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.

5. (mechanical) A sheave.
6. (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.

Derived terms

• indsheaf

Translations

Verb

sheaf (third-person singular simple present sheafs, present participle sheafing, simple past and past participle sheafed)

1. (transitive) To gather and bind into a sheaf; to make into sheaves

2. (intransitive) To collect and bind cut grain, or the like; to make sheaves.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act III, Scene II, line 107:

     They that reap must sheaf and bind; Then to cart with Rosalind.

Anagrams

• SHAEF, Shefa

English

Noun

heaf

1. (Northern England) A piece of mountain pasture to which a farm animal has become hefted; a heft.

Verb

heaf (third-person singular simple present heafs, present participle heafing, simple past and past participle heafed)

1. (Northern England) (of farm animals, especially a flock of sheep) To become accustomed to and attached to an area of mountain pasture, seldom straying from it.

Anagrams

• HFEA, hafe