Etymology

Noun

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

   • The reaper fills his greedy hands, And binds the golden sheaves in brittle bands. -- John Dryden.
2. Any collection of things bound together; a bundle.

   a sheaf of paper

3. 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. -- John Dryden.
4. (unit) 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. 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. ^W

Verb

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