leaf
The usually green and flat organ that represents the most prominent feature of most vegetative plants.
Noun
- The usually green and flat organ that represents the most prominent feature of most vegetative plants.
- Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from...
- A foliage leaf or any of the many and often considerably different structures it can specialise into.
- Anything resembling the leaf of a plant.
- A sheet of a book, magazine, etc. (consisting of two pages, one on each face of the leaf).
- Heretofore advertisers have had to buy and pay for a leaf — two pages. - 1900, Profitable Advertising, volume 10, number 2, page 893:
- A sheet of any substance beaten or rolled until very thin.
- gold leaf
- One of the individual flat or curved strips of metal, typically made of spring steel, that make up a leaf spring.
- Lumbering down a precipitous "slideway," the Thornycroft broke two main leaves in the back spring[.] - 1931, Ion L. Idriess, Lasseter's Last Ride, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 52:
- Tea leaves.
- A flat section used to extend the size of a table.
- A moveable panel, e.g. of a bridge or door, originally one that hinged but now also applied to other forms of movement.
- The train car has one single-leaf and two double-leaf doors per side.
- The bridge shear locks were repaired and the long ends of the shear locks shortened about two inches to eliminate butting of the bridge leafs against each other. - 1914, Department of Bridges, City of New York, Report,...
- It will be noted that the pivotal mounting of the cylinders is such that the cylinders have their greatest leverage (i.e., exert the greatest door-opening force) when the door leafs 24, 28 are closed because the...
Hyponyms: doorleaf
Meronyms: stile
- In a tree, a node that has no descendants.
- The algorithm pops the stack to obtain a new current node when there are no more children (when it reaches a leaf). - 2011, John Mongan, Noah Kindler, Eric Giguère, Programming Interviews Exposed:
- The layer of fat supporting the kidneys of a pig, leaf fat.
- One of the teeth of a pinion, especially when small.
Origin
From Middle English leef, from Old English lēaf, from Proto-West Germanic *laub, from Proto-Germanic *laubą (“leaf”), from Proto-Indo-European *lowbʰ-o-m, from *lewbʰ- (“to cut off”). Cognates Cognate with Scots leaf (“leaf”), Yola laafe (“leaf”), North Frisian luuf (“leaf”), Saterland Frisian Loof (“leaf”), West Frisian leaf (“leaf”), Cimbrian loap (“leaf”), Dutch loof (“foliage”), German Laub (“leaves”), German Low German Loov (“leaf”), Luxembourgish Laf (“foliage, leaves”), Mòcheno lap (“leaf”), Vilamovian łaub, łaup, łojp (“leaf”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål løv (“leaf”), Faroese leyv (“leaf”), Icelandic lauf (“leaf”), Norwegian Nynorsk lauv (“leaf”), Swedish löv (“leaf”), Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐌿𐍆𐍃 (laufs, “leaf”); also Irish luibh (“herb, plant”), Latin liber (“bast; book”), Albanian labë (“rind”), Lithuanian lúobas (“bark; bast”), Polish łub (“bark”), Russian луб (lub, “bast”). (Internet...
Forms
Synonyms
Derived
alderleaf Juneberry almond tree leaf skeletoniser moth almond tree leaf skeletonizer moth aluminium leaf aluminum leaf angle leaf apple bud and leaf mite apple leaf midge apple leaf miner arrowleaf ash-gray leaf bug ash-leaf aspen leaf blotch miner moth autumn leaf auxiliary leaf avocado leaf babyleaf banana leaf baroclinic leaf bay leaf bay-leaf beleaf belladona leaf betel leaf
Verb
- To produce leaves; put forth foliage.
- Then flowered the mead, then leafed all 'Twas caused by the runic lay. - 1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 164:
- To divide (a vegetable) into separate leaves.
- The lettuce in our burgers is 100% hand-leafed.
- To play a prank on someone by throwing a large clump or collection of leaves at them.