leaf
UK /liːf/ · US /lif/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms leaves leafs leafing leafed Life
- noun The usually green and flat organ that represents the most prominent feature of most vegetative plants.
- noun (botany) A foliage leaf or any of the many and often considerably different structures it can specialise into.
- noun Anything resembling the leaf of a plant.
- noun (publishing, bookbinding, advertising) A sheet of a book, magazine, etc. (consisting of two pages, one on each face of the leaf).
- noun A sheet of any substance beaten or rolled until very thin. “gold leaf”
- noun One of the individual flat or curved strips of metal, typically made of spring steel, that make up a leaf spring.
- noun (in the plural) Tea leaves.
- noun A flat section used to extend the size of a table.
- verb (intransitive) To produce leaves; put forth foliage.
- verb (transitive) To divide (a vegetable) into separate leaves. “The lettuce in our burgers is 100% hand-leafed.”
- verb (informal, transitive, uncommon) To play a prank on someone by throwing a large clump or collection of leaves at them.
- proper noun A surname from Old English.
- noun (Internet slang, humorous, sometimes pejorative) A Canadian person.
- noun (slang, Canada) A member of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, its organization, or its supporters.
- noun A model of car built by Nissan, with a name chosen for its green connotations.
Synonyms
folio folium phyllon leave leafage foliage flick flip thumb riffle riff
Etymology
From Middle English lef, 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”).
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 slang: Canadian): In reference to the maple leaf as national symbol.
From the Old English personal names Lēofa and Lēofe, both from lēof (“dear, beloved”).
From the maple leaf depicted on Canada's flag.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A colored, usually green, expansion growing from the side of a stem or rootstock, in which the sap for the use of the plant is elaborated under the influence of light; one of the parts of a plant which collectively constitute its foliage.
- noun A special organ of vegetation in the form of a lateral outgrowth from the stem, whether appearing as a part of the foliage, or as a cotyledon, a scale, a bract, a spine, or a tendril.
- verb To shoot out leaves; to produce leaves; to leave; as, the trees leaf in May. Sir T. Browne.
Etymology [OE. leef, lef, leaf, AS. leáf; akin to S. l, OFries. laf, D. loof foliage, G. laub,OHG. loub leaf, foliage, Icel. lauf, Sw. löf, Dan. löv, Goth. laufs; cf. Lith. lapas. Cf. Lodge.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “leaf”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details