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noun
Sheaf  n.  (pl. sheaves)  
1.
A quantity of the stalks and ears of wheat, rye, or other grain, bound together; a bundle of grain or straw. "The reaper fills his greedy hands, And binds the golden sheaves in brittle bands."
2.
Any collection of things bound together; a bundle; specifically, a bundle of arrows sufficient to fill a quiver, or the allowance of each archer, usually twenty-four. "The sheaf of arrows shook and rattled in the case."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sheaf" Quotes from Famous Books



... us carefully preserve these chains of domestic union. Do not let us unbind the human sheaf, and scatter its ears to all the caprices of chance and of the winds; but let us rather enlarge this holy law; let us carry the principles and the habits of home beyond set bounds; and, if it may be, let us realize ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... thou hast been weeping, Let go the thoughts that bind thee to thy grief: Lie still, and watch the singing angels, reaping The golden harvest of thy sorrow, sheaf by sheaf; Or count thy joys like flocks of snow-white sheep That one by one come creeping Into the quiet fold, until thou sleep, And so ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke

... armored vessel afloat. The sighter in the conning tower moves swiftly, up within range of the vessel he is attacking and gives the signal for the discharge of the torpedo. The men aboard the attacked ship have no warning of their impending death except a thin sheaf of water that follows on the surface in the wake of the submerged torpedo and which ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... counties to procure feathers from the wings of geese, plucking six from each goose. An archer of this time was clad in a cuirass, or a hauberk of chain-mail, with a salade on his head, which was a kind of bacinet. Every man had a good bow, a sheaf of arrows, and a sword. Fabian describes the archer's dress at the battle of Agincourt. "The yeomen had their limbs at liberty, for their hose was fastened with one point, and their jackets were easy to shoot in, so that they might draw bows of great ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare

... cave, and there was much testing of the new device, and finally, one morning, Ab issued forth armed with his ax and knife, but without his spear. He bore, instead, a bow which was the best and strongest the two had yet learned to fashion, and a sheaf of arrows slung behind his back in a quiver made of a hollow section of a mammoth's leg bone which had long been kicked about the cave. The two workers had drilled holes in the bone and passed thongs through and made a wooden bottom to the thing and now it had ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... plan died in birth, for, at their backs, came a discreet cough of warning, and, both heads turning as one they saw Bonbright, the assistant secretary, with a sheaf of notes on yellow sheets in ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... with the fire-new Governor, a grim, quiet fellow named Pedro Lopez. He and Luis Torres had been neighbors in Spain; it was Luis who brought us together. I gave him some wine in Doctor Juan Lepe's small room and he told readily the charges against the Viceroy that Bobadilla, seizing, made into a sheaf. ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... came, bringing with him an immense sheaf of roses, she left the room almost at once, giving as an excuse her wish to ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... in Norway and Sweden is that of fastening a sheaf of wheat to a long pole on the barn or house-top, for the wild birds' holiday cheer; and in Holland the young men of the towns sometimes bear a large silver star through the snowy streets, collecting alms from pedestrians for the helpless or the ...
— Myths and Legends of Christmastide • Bertha F. Herrick

... Shut the door and come over here." The man behind the desk hoisted his three hundred well-dressed pounds and glared at Walter from under flagrant eyebrows. Torkleson's whole body quivered as he slammed a sheaf of papers down on the desk. "Just what do you think you're ...
— Meeting of the Board • Alan Edward Nourse

... lie.... I shall give up everything for life to my creditors, and throw myself as a beggar on Asiatic charity, and wander far without one parra in my pocket, with the mare from the stable of Solomon in one hand, and a sheaf of the corn of Beni-Israel in the other. I shall meet death, or that which I believe to be written, which no mortal can efface. On September 7, Dr. Meryon and his family embarked at Leghorn for Cyprus, but on nearing ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... the ovens, the casting of the net, wheat as it passed through the mill, money as it came from the Mint, the traveller as he went on his way; the country people who then paid no taxes or contributions served their king and saved their own souls, giving the best sheaf in every ten, so that the granaries of the Holy Metropolitan Church were quite insufficient to contain such abundance. What times were those, Gabriel! There was faith, Gabriel, and faith is the chief thing in life—without faith there is no ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... group turned in that direction. At Justice Higginbotham's announcement several of the men had stood up. They now dropped back into their seats. There was a long pause. To Jimmy it seemed that they all held their breath. The negro came to the door, in his hand a sheaf of telegrams. His eyes swept over the ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew

... Eastcliff, wearing a carnation button-hole, was by his side, and his aunt, Lady Margaret, carrying a sheaf of beautiful ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... of them to Apollo, who received them very graciously, and resolved to make the Author a suitable Return for the Trouble he had been at in collecting them. In order to this, he set before him a Sack of Wheat, as it had been just threshed out of the Sheaf. He then bid him pick out the Chaff from among the Corn, and lay it aside by it self. The Critick applied himself to the Task with great Industry and Pleasure, and after having made the due Separation, was presented by Apollo with the Chaff ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... the breadth of Providence. How many who have deemed themselves antagonists will smile hereafter, when they look back upon the world's wide harvest field, and perceive that, in unconscious brotherhood, they were helping to bind the selfsame sheaf! ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... table, cast a red and flickering light over a rude interior, furnished with the table, the settle, a chest and a straw pallet. From the walls and rafters hung nets, torn or mended. In one corner was a great heap of dingy sail, in another a sheaf of oars, and a third was wholly in darkness. Lying about the earthen floor were several small casks to which the ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... Garter (53rd of that order) at the time of Edward III., and was present at Poitiers. He died in 1375. There are still traces of colour on this monument and gold remains on the points of the cap to which the camail is fastened, as also on the jewelled sword-belt. A sheaf of green coloured leathers is separated from the tilting helmet, on which the head rests, by a coronet of open roses. When the effigy was brought here it had but one leg left, and that the gartered one. A wooden limb was carved, and the workman ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher

... should bring only its culminating glories, its most perfect results, whether of leaf or flower or fruit. For in an urn of tintless alabaster, that had lain centuries in the breathless dust and gloom of an Egyptian tomb, that hand had set a sheaf of gentians, every fringed cup blue as the wild river when a noon sky tints it, or as the vaulted azure of a June midnight on the edge of the Milky Way,—a sheaf no Ceres owned, no foodfull garner coveted, but the satiating aliment of beauty, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... to the green-striped sofa, and seated himself beside her with a sigh of appreciation for the warmth and soft light of the pleasant room, and the presence of woman. "Your harp!" he exclaimed. "I should have brought a sheaf of Spanish songs such as the ladies sing to the guitar in New Orleans!—My dear sir, your fair wife and my Theodosia must one day sing together, walk hand in hand together, in that richer, sweeter land! They shall use the mantilla and wield the fan. Crowns are ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... eyes had followed the sheaf of signed correspondence, and the well-filled pad of more recent dictation which the sleek little stenographer had carried away ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... viciously as he passed through the office lobby and barely escaped collision with Mr. Boner as he turned the corner of the partition en route to his desk. Mr. Boner merely grunted. He bore in his hand a sheaf of orders for the mailing desk. He believed ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... I'll mind mine. Nobody knows,—barring the captain, and he like enough has forgot,—and nobody's going to know. What's written on these eight bits of paper everybody may know," and he pulled out of a large case or purse, which he carried in his breast coat-pocket, a fat sheaf of bills. "There are five thou' written on each of them, and for five thou' on each of them I means to stand out. 'It or miss.' If any shentleman chooses to talk to me about ready money I'll take two thou' off. I like ready money ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... bust Hilary rested his forehead on his hand. In front of him were three open books and a pile of manuscript, and pushed to one side a little sheaf of pieces of green-white paper, press-cuttings ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... unmistakable German, from a distance of about fifty yards: "Was machen sie da?" ("What are you doing there?"). Any doubts as to which country I was in were rudely dispelled. For a moment I was completely at a loss for an answer, then, bending down, I seized the loose sheaf (which was to have acted as a door to my palace) and placed it against the others, and, turning round, replied in low German, "I am only replacing these, which ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight

... once set about arming himself for the adventure. On his head he placed a cap of steel. Underneath his Lincoln green he wore a coat of chain metal. Then with sword and buckler girded at his side he made a goodly show. But he also took with him his stout yew bow and a sheaf ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... handed me a sheaf of typewritten notes. "These'll just about make it. You'll notice the initial flight is charted ...
— The Very Black • Dean Evans

... away, under forced draft, to report from Coronel, the nearest cable-station. Thence she would go to Valparaiso, so she carried a sheaf of letters, and one passenger, Frascuelo. Finding that he could not execute the needed repairs at Sandy Point, Courtenay decided to make for Montevideo, where he would be in telegraphic communication with Mr. Baring. ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... villains of every description, but need therefore the heroic be reduced to dshabill? That we cannot so well afford. We can give up William Tell's apple as easily as we can the one in Genesis, but Winkelreid's "sheaf of Austrian spears" is an essential argument against original sin, being an ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... of untainted blood remaining in that region, and said to be an hereditary chieftain, descended from the sachem who welcomed Governor Mayhew to the Vineyard. Mr. Wigglesworth exerted his best skill to carve a broken bow and scattered sheaf of arrows, in memory of the hunters and warriors whose race was ended here; but he likewise sculptured a cherub, to denote that the poor Indian had shared the ...
— Chippings With A Chisel (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... corruptions was often tempted, by "a sickly inclination," to commit suicide, and that he even wrote, though he did not dare to publish, an apology for suicide on religious grounds, his famous and little-read Biathanatos. The family crest of the Donnes was a sheaf of snakes, and these symbolize well enough the brood of temptations that twisted about in this unfortunate Christian's bosom. Donne, in the days of his salvation, abandoned the family crest for a new one—Christ crucified on an anchor. ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... sword. "My orders are plain," he said, tapping a sheaf of papers on his desk. "They came in the last packet. I am to treat all prisoners in the Indian manner. As you say, the Indians have come to think us chicken-hearted. We must give them more than words if we are to ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... the hearts of her enemies, or, at all events confound their politics; and each, with a sort of awful second-sight, when they viewed one another across the street, beholding her neighbour draped in a dark film of thunder-cloud, and with a sheaf of pale lightning, instead of a ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... another cigarette, watered his wine, and lifted from a shelf a sheaf of pamphlets. They were hectographed, not printed from type, for he is the human printing-press of all this region, and all were in his clear and exquisite writing. He held them and referred to ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... took place in the barn, where Turkey happened to be thrashing alone that morning. In turning the sheaf, or in laying a fresh one, there was always a moment's pause in the din, and then only we talked, so that our conversation was a good deal broken. I had buried myself in the straw, as in days of old, to keep myself warm, and there I ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... the Land Office at Pierre and threw a sheaf of proof notices on the Register's desk. He looked at them with practiced eyes. "These haven't been published ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... the first mail in nearly three months and our share amounted to 105 letters besides a great quantity of magazines. Wu had ridden to Teng-yueh for us and, as well as the greatly desired mail, had a basket of delicious vegetables and a sheaf of Reuter's cablegrams which were kindly sent by Messrs. Palmer and Abertsen, gentlemen in the employ of the Chinese Customs, who had cared for our mail. Mr. Abertsen also sent a note telling us of a good hunting ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... although he had been mangled in the power-house of which they had spoken that day. Come to think of it, she too had been working in the "power-house" and had been mangled also; for she was but a thread of what she was then, but a wisp of golden straw to the sheaf of the then young ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... place in the far corner of the room and bent over a sheaf of papers. Presently Granet was ushered in. He was leaning a little less heavily upon his stick and he had taken his arm from the sling for a moment. He saluted the General respectfully and glanced across the room towards where Thomson ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... not: Fortune at your time of life, Although a female moderately fickle, Will hardly leave you (as she's not your wife) For any length of days in such a pickle. To strive, too, with our fate were such a strife As if the corn-sheaf should oppose the sickle: Men are the sport of circumstances, when The circumstances seem the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... the sheaf of papers beneath Martin's nose. They were sheets of blank, white paper, and they had been creased ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... gilded mail, that flamed so bright It seemed the dark castle had gathered all Those shafts the fierce sun had shot over its wall In his siege of three hundred summers long, And, binding them all in one blazing sheaf, Had cast them forth: so, young and strong, And lightsome as a locust-leaf, Sir Launfal flashed forth in his unscarred mail, To seek in all climes for the ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... a ready but not pretentious pen, guided by a sound intelligence and some power of observation, makes an admirable commentary. Our author's narrative carries us to those days of the great hopes of the Spring of 1917, hopes so tragically deferred. Perhaps the best thing in an interesting sheaf is the description of the attack of the Guards Division—as it had become—on the Transloy-Lesboeufs-Ginchy road, with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various

... mutual affection, it may be mentioned that not only the public coin, but their furniture, books, and other articles of personal property, were stamped with their initials, F & I, or emblazoned with their devices, his being a yoke, and hers a sheaf of arrows. (Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 2, dial. 3.) It was common, says Oviedo, for each party to take a device, whose initial corresponded with that of the name of the other; as was the case here, with jugo ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... youthful performances, when he condescended to be born in low life, begin to rise. An exact parallel may be seen in the case of Civa, who at first is a divine character, assuming a more or less grotesque likeness to a man; but subsequently he becomes anthropomorphized, and is fitted out with a sheaf of legends which describe his earthly acts.[87] And so with Krishna. As the chief god, identified with the All-god, he is later made the object of encomiums which degrade while they are meant to exalt him. He becomes a cow-boy and acts like one, a god in a mask. But in the ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins

... his voice announced that slaves with the magic "things" were without the palisade, and called upon Mungongo to go to the gate to fetch them as strangers were forbidden even to look upon the King-God. Birnier, by the light of a torch, opened the mail, sent a wad of letters and a sheaf of telegraph slips on to the floor, and snatched a long green ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... admirals who were famous figures in Dundonald's fiery youth and famous memories in Dundonald's noble age. And as the admirals were, so were the captains, so were the men. Fearney sticking the surrendered swords in a sheaf under his arm; Walton calmly informing his superior that "we have taken or destroyed all the Spanish ships on this coast: number as per margin," are typical figures in a tradition of a courage so superlative that Admiral Sir Robert ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... more and more a title of opprobrium and contempt, the 'villain.' The instruments used in cultivating the earth, the 'plough,' the 'share,' the 'rake,' the 'scythe,' the 'harrow,' the 'wain,' the 'sickle,' the 'spade,' the 'sheaf,' the 'barn,' are expressed in his language; so too the main products of the earth, as wheat, rye, oats, bere, grass, flax, hay, straw, weeds; and no less the names of domestic animals. You will remember, no doubt, how in the matter of these Wamba, the Saxon jester in Ivanhoe, plays ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... would be a lark to camp in the Congdon villa, a break in the deadly routine of his days which Isabel Perry had pointed out as a possible cause of his invalidism. He made himself comfortable and studied the sheaf of time tables he had brought with him, methodically formulating the messages he would be obliged to despatch in the morning to change his ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... vigorous efforts the mountain of wealth is made to pass, without mishap, beneath the rustic triumphal arch. Especially with the last load, called the gerbaude, are these precautions required; for that is made the occasion of a rustic festival, and the last sheaf gathered from the last furrow is placed on top of the load, decorated with ribbons and flowers, as are the heads of the oxen and the driver's goad. Thus the triumphal, laborious entry of the cabbage into the house is an emblem of the ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... own making-up, Dolly Doodles!" she let her bow wander idly over the strings, until a sort of rhythmic measure came to her; fragments she knew of many compositions but bound into a sheaf, as it were, by a theme of ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond

... the Principles of Scripture and Reason, which he wrote at the desire of a person of quality. He also translated Dr. Donne's Latin Epigrams into English, and published them under the title of, A Sheaf ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... following nouns: town, country, case, pin, needle, harp, pen, sex, rush, arch, marsh, monarch, blemish, distich, princess, gas, bias, stigma, wo, grotto, folio, punctilio, ally, duty, toy, money, entry, valley, volley, half, dwarf, strife, knife, roof, muff, staff, chief, sheaf, mouse, penny, ox, foot, erratum, axis, thesis, criterion, bolus, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... that door we halted with a jerk. Ward was lounging in a big chair with a pillow behind his shoulder, and over by the open window where the sun danced along the casement was Cynthia Carper setting a sheaf of roses in ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post

... divine—safe so far, and many miles away. Certainly, had he possessed his soul in patience a fortnight or so longer, he would have been forwarded to his desired destination securely and at the expense of the enemy. Before he reaches it now, he will have paid away a sheaf of greenbacks, and run the gauntlet of a frontier blockade, closing in more tightly every hour. North of the Potomac there is no rest for the sole of his foot. So, many would say, that the escapade had far better have been deferred. Eight weeks ago I should have ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... Indian, who stood like a bronze statue, resting upon the sheaf of spears he held, and watching us all curiously, as if noting our manner, and ...
— To The West • George Manville Fenn

... beam like sunset path Gilding the sea: and, turning, by his side Victor, God's angel, stood with lustrous brow Fresh from that Face no man can see and live. He, putting forth his hand, with living coal Snatched from God's altar, made that dripping cowl Dry as an Autumn sheaf. The angel spake: "Rejoice, for they are fled that hate thy land, And those are nigh that love it." Then the Saint Upraised his head; and lo! in snowy sheen Cresting high rock, and ridge, and airy peak, Innumerable the Sons of God all round Vested the invisible mountain with white light, ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere

... sealskin jacket. Dad is almost certain to ask me about it, for he never made me such a handsome present before. Poor dad! he was so proud the night he brought it home. He said, 'Look here, Poll, I paid a whole sheaf of fivers for this, and although it cost me a good round eighty guineas, I'm told it's cheap at the price. Put it on and let me see how you look in it,' he said. And when I had it on he twisted me round, and chucked ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade

... unaccountably. They had, of course, been stolen from his person with the obvious intention of impeding the inquiry into the murder. Next, in another inner pocket was Quadling's own wallet, with his own visiting-cards, several letters addressed to him by name; above all, a thick sheaf of bank-notes of all nationalities—English, French, Italian, and amounting in total value to several ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths

... while, the Blackfoot jumped off his horse to fight on foot, and the two enemies rode up on either side of him, but a long way off, and jumped off their horses. When he saw the two on either side of him, he took a sheaf of arrows in his hand and began to rush, first toward the one on the right, and then toward the one on the left. As he did this, he saw that one of the men, when he ran toward him and threatened to shoot, would draw away from him, while the other would ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... reapt, the other part sheep-walks and foulds; Ith' midst an Altar as the Land-mark stood Rustic, of grassie sord; thither anon A sweatie Reaper from his Tillage brought First Fruits, the green Eare, and the yellow Sheaf, Uncull'd, as came to hand; a Shepherd next More meek came with the Firstlings of his Flock Choicest and best; then sacrificing, laid The Inwards and thir Fat, with Incense strew'd, On the cleft Wood, and all due Rites ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... landlady came in again, bearing a broad platter, upon which stood all the beakers and flagons charged to the brim with the brown ale or the ruby wine. Behind her came a maid with a high pile of wooden plates, and a great sheaf of spoons, one of which she handed round to each of the travellers. Two of the company, who were dressed in the weather-stained green doublet of foresters, lifted the big pot off the fire, and a third, with a huge pewter ladle, served out a portion of steaming collops ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... material issuing from it in a new state and what is more, a state manifestly adapted for its future uses: the grain in meal fit for the making of bread, the wool in rovings fit for the spinning into threads, the sheaf in corn fit for the mill. Is it necessary that this man, in order to be convinced that design, that intention, that contrivance has been employed about the machine, should be allowed to pull it to pieces, should be enabled ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... pouches and horns were suspended from the branches around. Each warrior was encircled with a belt of hide, in which glittered the usual implements of the chase and war. Some of the inferior ones carried only a stout ash bow, a sheaf of feathered arrows, and a weighty club of bone, adorned with quills and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... and sons of Rome, By uproar sever'd, as a flight of fowl Scatter'd by winds and high tempestuous gusts, O, let me teach you how to knit again This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf, These broken limbs again into one body: Lest Rome herself be bane unto herself, And she whom mighty kingdoms court'sy to, Like a forlorn and desperate castaway, Do shameful execution on herself. But if my frosty ...
— The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... expounded. smiling vaingloriously down at her. "I amused myself at the Miami library Saturday by browsing over a sheaf of Government plant reports. And those two solid facts stuck in my memory. Now. won't I be an invaluable aide to your brother if I can remember everything else ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune

... two as they passed. She scrutinized the flying machine closely, the feathers, the head-dress on Node. She entered the house: "Well, Mary," (addressing the mother), "I've seed a good many funny sights sence Alfurd's been ole enuf tu run aroun' but I'll be durned ef this one ain't the cap sheaf." ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... know. It is hidden in the bosom of the Church. Sinner he once was, criminal never, as one can testify who knows all"—he turned to the Abbe Rossignol, who stood beside him, grave and compassionate— "and his sins were forgiven him. He is the one sheaf which you and I may carry home rejoicing from the pagan world of unbelief. What he had in life he gave to us, and in death he leaves to our church all that he has not left to a woman he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... Buck and the office staff, her son Jock was the only one who knew. But she found her cabin stocked like a prima donna's on a farewell tour. There were boxes of flowers, a package of books, baskets of fruit, piles of magazines, even a neat little sheaf of telegrams, one from the faithful bookkeeper, one from the workroom foreman, two from salesmen long in the firm's employ, two from Jock in Chicago. She read them, her face glowing. He and Buck had vied with each other ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber

... her longingly, but he dared not intrude upon her somber abstraction. The voices in the tent rose and fell. Once at a louder phrase from Daddy John she turned her head quickly and listened, a sheaf of strained nerves. The voices dropped again, her eye came back to the light and touched the young man's face. It contained no recognition of him, but he leaped at the chance, making stammering proffer of such aid as ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner

... weeks to her wedding when one day Nelly suddenly came upon Mrs. Rooke in one of the narrow, fashionable streets south of Oxford Street. Mrs. Rooke was coming out of a florist's shop, and she was carrying a sheaf of lilies in her hand. For one second she looked as though she would have turned aside and avoided Nelly. Then she came straight on with a little unfriendly uplifting of her ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan

... the good alderman, "away with such foolish talk. Let's see a match struck up. I myself will give a new long-bow and a sheaf of arrows to the best jumper of you all. What say you? The highest leap and the broadest? Ho, there!" added he, calling a servant to him; "bid them clear a space for a match 'twixt the gallant 'prentices of the Bridge and the gallant 'prentices without Temple ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed

... gifts: some arrow-heads and a curiously fashioned vessel from the canon of the cave-dwellers; some chips from the petrified forest; a fern with wonderful fronds, root and all; and a sheaf of strange, beautiful blossoms carefully wrapped in wet paper, and all fastened to ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... affect rather to be called fathers, and by being really so, they well deserve the name; and the people pay them all the marks of honour the more freely, because none are exacted from them. The Prince himself has no distinction, either of garments, or of a crown; but is only distinguished by a sheaf of corn carried before him; as the high priest is also known by his being preceded by a ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various

... requires, Shakes off the dust, and makes these rocks resound; For fortune placed me in unfertile ground, Far from the joys that with my soul agree, From wit, from learning—far, oh far from thee! 80 Here moss-grown trees expand the smallest leaf, Here half an acre's corn is half a sheaf; Here hills with naked heads the tempest meet, Rocks at their side, and torrents at their feet, Or lazy lakes, unconscious of a flood, Whose dull brown ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... have the pleasure of attending you. Besides, I am not upon the best of terms with King Pluto. To tell you the truth, his three-headed mastiff would never let me pass the gateway; for I should be compelled to take a sheaf of sunbeams along with me, and those, you know, are forbidden things in ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... faces of the children, their bright hair, even their voices, were subdued. Fanny, apparently, hadn't moved; the light at her shoulder was reflected in the cut steel buckles of her slippers; she had slight but graceful ankles. He recognized this, drawing a sheaf of reports from his brief- case; but, after a perfunctory glance, he dropped them beside ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... very pleasant too, and with many little comforts for those who wish to be indolent, such as foot-rests, and low tables for holding decanter and glasses and a sheaf of long pipes and some of ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... subscribentes confirmandum, Dubitantes informandum, Opponentes convincendum; and underneath Multa videntur quae non sunt, multa sunt quae non videntur. Under that ingraven two hands joyn'd, with the motto, Ut uniamur; and beneath a sheaf of arrows, with this device, Vis unita fortior; and to conclude, Concordia parvae res crescunt discordia dilabuntur.' A most hieroglyphical title, and sufficient to have supplied the mantlings and atchievements of the family! By these parents he was sent to Oxford, with intention ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... already made for the door and within a moment was ushering in the new arrivals. And Purdie was quick to note that the Levendale who entered, a sheaf of morning papers in his hand, was a vastly different Levendale to the man he had seen nine hours before, dirty, unkempt, and worn out with weariness. The trim beard and mustache were hopelessly lost, and there were lines on Levendale's face which they concealed, ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher

... head for an idea while she took from her hand-bag, not a vanity-case, but a stenographer's notebook and a sheaf of pencils. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... love—so, with hope, look thither, Ye hearts despondent, and take relief! The grain, you laid in the ground to wither, Shall rise to harvests of golden sheaf. O! what was born For your hearts to cherish— And left forlorn In the grave to perish, It is not gone; though it is not there— The One Eternal of it ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin

... out into the fields on the sunny April mornings to collect them in their little baskets, and then come home and pick the pips to make sweet unintoxicating wine, preserving at the same time untouched a bunch of the goodliest flowers as a harvest-sheaf of beauty! and then the white soft husks are gathered into balls and tossed from hand to hand till they drop to pieces, to be trodden upon and forgotten. And so at last, when each sense has had its fill of ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... Vision of Judgment, and Cain—make up almost the sole record of the poet's pursuits during the five following months. In February 6th he sent, through Mr. Kinnaird, the challenge to Southey, of the suppression of which he was not aware till May 17. The same letter contains a sheaf of the random cynicisms, as—"Cash is virtue," "Money is power; and when Socrates said he knew nothing, he meant he had not a drachma"—by which he sharpened the shafts of his assailants. A little later, on occasion of the death of Lady Noel, he expresses himself with natural bitterness on ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... mother. Another straw! Lily supposed she was Maurice's mother! A straw.... Edith admitted—had impudently flung into Eleanor's face!—the confession that she was "in love with him!"—and Edith was to be in town for three months. Oh, what a sheaf of straws! Edith would see him constantly. She would "look at him"! Could Maurice stand that? Wouldn't what little love he felt for his old wife go down under the wicked assault of those "looks"?—unless he had Jacky! ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... the west wind among the summer trees, or the swish and sway of the foam about the feet of Aphrodite. There she sat facing me once more, "a feasting presence made of light"—her hair like a golden wheat sheaf, her eyes like blue flowers amid the wheat, and her bosom, by no means parsimoniously concealed, literally suggesting that the loveliness of all the water lilies in the world was amassed there within her corset as in ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne

... keep For ever nearest to his smiles, On Calpe's olive-shaded steep Or India's citron-cover'd isles. More remote and buxom-brown, The Queen of vintage bow'd before his throne; A rich pomegranate gemm'd her crown, A ripe sheaf bound her zone. ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... Art and Antinational Intriguers. Such malign individuals, of the scoundrel species, have power to vex us, while the Constitution is a-making. Endure it, ye heroic Patriots: nay rather, why not cure it? Grains do grow, they lie extant there in sheaf or sack; only that regraters and Royalist plotters, to provoke the people into illegality, obstruct the transport of grains. Quick, ye organised Patriot Authorities, armed National Guards, meet together; unite your goodwill; in union is tenfold ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... Macbeth—broke into a loud and merry laugh. The sound of it was worth more to me at that moment than a sheaf of testimonials, for I remembered Carlyle's dictum that there is nothing irremediably wrong with any man who can utter ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks

... and when you are there all the ambitious mediocrities unite against you if you have any talent. Naturally, I do not intend to do anything to exhibit mine. Spanish politics are like a pond; a strong, healthy stick of wood goes to the bottom; a piece of bark or cork or a sheaf of straw stays on the surface. One has to disguise oneself ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... Thriasian plain, and the sacred city of Eleusis, where the Earth-mother's temple stands. For there she met Triptolemus, when all the land lay waste, Demeter the kind Earth-mother, and in her hands a sheaf of corn. And she taught him to plow the fallows, and to yoke the lazy kine; and she taught him to sow the seed-fields, and to reap the golden grain; and sent him forth to teach all nations, and give corn to laboring men. So at Eleusis all ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... thou, my sweetest, art given to blushing: there is no conquering it in thee. I wish thou hadst not alighted so hastily and roughly: it hath shaken down a sheaf of thy hair. Take heed thou sit not upon it, lest it anguish thee. Well done! it mingleth now sweetly with the cloth of gold upon the saddle, running here and there, as if it had life and faculties and business, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... mighty efforts they force this mountain of riches beneath the rustic arch of triumph. It is, above all, the last load, called "the cart of sheaves," which requires these precautions, for this is a rural festival, and the last sheaf lifted from the last furrow is placed on the top of the cart-load ornamented with ribbons and flowers, while the foreheads of the oxen and the whip of the driver are decorated also. The triumphant and toilsome entry of the cabbage into the house is a symbol of the prosperity ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... narrowing it by a broad band each time, the wheat fell flat on the short stubble. Roger stooped, and, gathering sufficient together, took a few straws, knotted them to another handful as you might tie two pieces of string, and twisted the band round the sheaf. He worked stooping to gather the wheat, bending to tie it in sheaves; stooping, bending—stooping, bending,—and so across the field. Upon his head and back the fiery sun poured down the ceaseless and increasing heat of the August day. His face grew red, his neck black; the drought of ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... counsel with my wisdom on this weighty matter. See, they know you"; and, indeed, many a man in that gallant array waved his hand to me merrily, as they filed past under their banners—the Douglas's bloody heart, the Crescent moon of Harden, the Napier's sheaf of spears, the blazons of Lindsays and Leslies, Homes, and Hepburns, and Stuarts. It was a sight to put life into the dying breast of a Scot in a strange country, and all were strong men and young, ruddy and brown of cheek, high of heart and heavy of hand. And ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... Reestit, refused to go. Reif, theiving. Remead, remedy. Rickles, small stacks of corn in the fields. Rief, plunder. Rig, a ridge. Riggin, the roof-tree, the roof. Rigwoodie, lean. Rin, to run. Ripp, a handful of corn from the sheaf. Ripplin-kame, the wool or flax comb. Riskit, cracked. Rive, to split, to tear, to tug, to burst. Rock, a distaff. Rockin, a social meeting. Roon, round, shred. Roose, to praise, to flatter. Roose, reputation. Roosty, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... along, Larkin, his auriferous hair glinting in the sun, Larkin, with his empty grocery basket swung on his rein arm, and a sheaf of papers under ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... wheat fields, where the women, in their cotton jackets and their wide hats, were reaping. The harvesting never looked so picturesque. I could pick out, in the distance, the tall figure of my Louise, with a sheaf on her head and a sickle in her hand, striding across the fields, and I thought how a painter would have loved the scene, with the long rays of the late September sunset illuminating the ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich

... over the compositor's "case," Fred reached down a sheaf of the Daily Weather Reports, and laid those for the last three days on the table in front of Anton. The Forecaster stood by to help the crippled lad and to correct him if he made any ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler

... fibre of the inner bark of the paper-mulberry. A commuted tax was levied on houses also, namely, a twelve-foot length of the above cloth per house. No currency existed in that age. All payments were made in kind. There is, therefore, no method of calculating accurately the monetary equivalent of a sheaf of rice. But in the case of fabrics we have some guide. Thus, in addition to the above imposts, every two townships—a township was a group of fifty houses—had to contribute one horse of medium quality ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... God and love, my chief, Even these turn from my side with footsteps spurning As, stooping low, I lift the heavy sheaf ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet

... and the grass, Then sear and tawny, turned to gray. The hardy flowers that will not pass For the shrewd autumn's chilling rain Closed their bright eyelids, and, alas! No summer opened them again. The strong trees shuddered at his touch, And shook their foliage to the plain. A sheaf of darts was in his clutch; And wheresoe'er he turned the head Of any dart, its power was such That Nature quailed with mortal dread, And crippling pain and foul disease For sorrowing leagues around him spread. Whene'er he cast o'er lands and seas That fatal shaft, there rose a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... wheat, the hardy wheat ranged in its serried rows, Seems like some noble camp upon the distant plain. Glory to God!—the crickets chirp their wide refrain; From sheaf to sheaf the welcome ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... in his chair and took up a sheaf of papers from the desk. "We have fairly complete dossiers. I'll give you the highlights, then you can take these with you to your ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... arrows, or in some instances a wheat-sheaf, was substituted for the cowls. Various interpretations were placed upon this new emblem. According to the nobles themselves, it denoted the union of all their hearts in the King's service, while their enemies insinuated that it was obviously a symbol of conspiracy. The costume thus amended was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... out of his gondola on to the hotel steps, the proprietor came forward to meet him with a sheaf of telegrams. Lord Arthur snatched them out of his hand, and tore them open. Everything had been successful. Lady Clementina had died quite suddenly on the ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde

... answer, but had Revere looked into the breast-pocket of his coat he might have seen there a sheaf of badly-written letters which perhaps accounted for the power that possessed the boy. A letter came to Bobby every other day. The spelling was not above reproach, but the sentiments must have been most satisfactory, for on receipt Bobby's eyes softened marvelously, and he was wont to fall into ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling



Words linked to "Sheaf" :   pack, fagot, package, swag, parcel, faggot



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