▪ I. sheave, n.1
(ʃiːv)
Forms: α. 4 schive, 5 s(c)hyve, 6 shife, shyfe, 5–6 Sc. pl. schyffis, schiffis; β. 4, 8–9 sheeve, 5 shefe, 5–6 sheve, 6 Sc. pl. s(c)hawis, 7–8 shaff, 8 shieve, sheff, 9 sheaf, 8– sheave.
[Cogn. w. OS. scîva fem. (glossing sphera), MLG., mod.LG., MDu. schîve (mod.Du. schijf), OHG. scîba, MHG. schîbe, mod.G. scheibe; also (? from LG.) Icel. sk{iacu}fa, Sw. skifva, Da. skive.
In continental Teut. these words have the senses disk, quoit, wheel, sheave or pulley, pane of glass, flat plate, slice of bread, etc.; their formal equivalent in Eng. is shive (ʃaɪv), which has had most of the senses here enumerated. The etymological relation between the present word and shive is hard to determine; the most probable view is that sheave represents (with vowel-change as in week, weevil, etc.) an OE. *scife or *scifa, from the weak grade of the root of sc{iacu}fe shive. In some of the α forms the quantity of the i is doubtful; if it be long, the examples belong strictly to shive n.]
1. = shive n.1, slice of bread.
| c 1375 Sc. Leg. Saints xxx. (Theodera) 31 For les þane a schefe of brede. c 1475 Pict. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 772/31, 32 Hec lesca, Hec colirida, a schefe of brede. 1544 T. Phaer Regim. Life (1553) F iij b, Take a sheaue of bread..toste it, and wete it [etc.]. 1552 Huloet, Cantel or shief of bread, minutal. 1586 Warner Alb. Eng. iv. xx. (1592) 85 A Sheeue of bread as browne as Nut. 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 57 He cald for shieves of bread to eat. |
2. a. A wheel having a groove in the circumference to receive a cord passing over it, a pulley; esp. one of the pulleys connected in a block; U.S. also, ‘the pulley of a window or door-hanger’ (Funk's Stand. Dict.). Also, a wheel having a groove in the circumference to enable it to run on a rail or bar.
| α 1336 Acc. Exch. K.R. 19/31 m. 4 Schiuis et trussis. 1399 in Fabric Rolls York Minster (Surtees) 18 Item j par de pulees cum vj shives. 1497 Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot. I. 358 Tua schyffis with xiij puleis. a 1515 Build. Louth Steeple in Archæologia X. 76 Paid to..John Harrison, smith, for one pully shife of brass, 16d. |
| β 1338 in Nicolas Royal Navy (1847) II. 171 Sheeues. [Other terms cited as occurring are ‘swivels’, ‘hawsers for warping’.] 1485 Naval Acc. Hen. VII (1896) 36 Sheves of brasse iiij grete & xviij small... Grete sheves of Iren..j. 1511–12 Rec. St. Mary at Hill (1904) 278 Paid for shevys of Brasse to hange þe lampe & þe pascall, the on peyre cost xij d, the oþer peire viij d. 1554–5 in Extracts Burgh Rec. Edin. (1871) II. 308 Twa faddome and ane half of cords to fessin the shawis to the rufe of the tolbuith, to rais the greit brandrauth togidder. Ibid. 311 Thre schawis of brass to the cran, ilk schewe weyand xx pund wecht. 1664 Evelyn Sylva vi. (1679) 42 Ash..serves..for..the best blocks for Pullys and Sheffs, as Seamen name them. 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine (1780), Sheave, a solid cylindrical wheel, fixed in a channel, and moveable about an axis,..used to..increase the mechanical powers applied to remove any body. The sheaves are either fixed in blocks, or in channels cut through the masts, caps, cat-heads, or sides of a ship. 1788 Trans. Soc. Arts VI. 207 A rope passing over the shieve of a notch block. 1825 J. Nicholson Oper. Mech. 425 The manner in which the rope goes round, and grasps the sheeves, and occasions their contrary motion. 1841 R. Willis Princ. Mechanism §211 In each mortise is a friction-pully or sheave, having a groove in its circumference round which the string or cord passes. 1859 Abridgm. Specif. Patents, Electr. & Magn. 288 Suspension and insulation of telegraph wires. Non-conducting sheaves or rollers are fixed to the posts [etc.]. 1869 Rankine Machine & Hand-tools Pl. O 2, The barrel and the sheave of the lower block have grooves for the chain to work in. 1888 J. Paton in Encycl. Brit. XXIV. 464/1 This eye or mail is placed in the heddle half⁓way between an upper and a lower wooden sheaf. 1892 Kipling Barrack-room Ballads 205 And the derricks clack and grate, as the tackle hooks the crate, And the fall-rope whines through the sheave. |
b. An eccentric or its disk.
| 1887 D. A. Low Machine Draw. (1892) 47 The eccentric is a particular form of crank... In the eccentric what corresponds to the crank-pin is called the sheave or pulley. |
c. attrib., as sheave-block, sheave-hole, etc.
| 1588 Churchw. Acc. St. Michael, Oxf., Item for makinge a *sheareband [? read sheaveband] for the seconde bell. 1590 Ibid., Item for peecing the Shereband [? read sheveband] and stirrops to the same bell. |
| 1844 Civil Engin. & Arch. Jrnl. VII. 246/2 Using either a simple sling, or *sheave-blocks, for placing the stones, according to their dimensions and weight. 1894 Times 26 Feb. 3/6 A sheaf-block to raise up the chain-block. |
| 1769 Falconer Dict. Marine ii. (1780), Trous d'écoutes, the *sheave-holes,..cut obliquely through a ship's side, wherein the main and fore⁓sheets are reeved. 1899 F. T. Bullen Log of Sea-waif 148 That third sheavehole..is for the skys'le-halliards. |
| 1883 Fisheries Exhib. Catal. 206 *Sheave-roller bushing. Lug-roller bushing. Improved lug-roller... Improved trawl roller. |
| 1939 C. W. Towne Her Majesty Montana 118 A Butte miner..is lowered to his labors in a steel cage suspended from a heavy wire cable passing over *sheave-wheels on a head-frame. 1971 Financial Mail (Johannesburg) 26 Feb. 648/1 They depend upon our equipment—like high speed man cage and skip guide rollers, sheave wheels. |
3. A layer of a coiled rope.
| 1840 F. D. Bennett Whaling Voy. II. 198 It is coiled, continuously, in two tubs, and in neat and compact horizontal layers, or ‘sheaves’. |
4. ‘A sliding scutcheon for covering a keyhole’ (Knight Dict. Mech. 1875).
▪ II. sheave, n.2 Now only dial. and techn.
(ʃiːv)
Also 6 sheve.
[Variant of shive n.2 (ʃɪv), with vowel-lengthening: cf. prec. The word corresponds in form and sense to MDu. scheve (Du. scheef, dial. scheeft), G. schebe, Da. dial. skiæv(e.]
1. A fragment, splinter; a particle of chaff; a bit of fluff sticking up on the surface of cloth, etc.; a particle of any hard substance in wool, etc.
| c 1558 Becon Gov. Virtue Wks. 1564 I. 272 Lyke an arthen potte whyche..breaketh so sore that a man shall not fynde a sheue of it to fetche fyre in. 1696 J. F. Merch. Wareho. laid open 8 Hamborogh Dowlas..this last wears well, but with these faults, which they never fail of, it wears with prickles or sheaves and never wears perfectly white. |
2. The woody part of flax or hemp.
| 1797 A. Young Agric. Suffolk 121 The offal [after ‘breaking’] is called hemp Sheaves, makes good fuel, and sells at two-pence a stone. |
3. Paper-making = shive n.2 2. ? Obs.
| 1880 J. Dunbar Pract. Papermaker 15 All rags..contain sheive, which nothing but judicious boiling will remove. 1888 Cross & Bevan Text-bk. Paper-Making vi. 90 Such impurities as weeds..if not removed would be liable to appear in the finished paper as dark-coloured specks, technically known as ‘sheave’. 1894 G. Clapperton Pract. Paper-Making xi. 135 The pressure applied in the super-calender is often such as to cause all the sheave and gritty matters to show up. |
▪ III. sheave, v.1
(ʃiːv)
[f. sheaf n., with regular change of f into v.]
trans. To bring together, collect, gather or put up (corn, etc.) into a sheaf or sheaves. Hence ˈsheaving vbl. n.
| 1579 [implied in sheaved ppl. a. 1]. 1598 Florio, Affasciare,..to sheaue. a 1722 Lisle Husb. (1757) 180 There is no need to let wheat lie out in gripp before it is sheaved. 1785 W. H. Marshall Midl. Counties (1790) II. 167 Many oats..have this year been ‘sheaved’: namely, mown out⁓ward, gathered from the swaths, bound, and shucked. 1821 Coleridge Lett., etc. (1858) 85 The main portion of my harvest is still on the ground, ripe indeed, and only waiting, a few for the sickle, but a large part only for the sheaving, and carting, and housing. 1830 Kyle Farm Rep. 43 in Libr. Usef. Knowl., Husb. III, Peas are not sheaved, but left loose, and frequently turned. 1851 Mrs. Browning Casa Guidi Wind. ii. 517 While our corn was being sheaved For his own granaries. 1881 P. B. Du Chaillu Land of Midn. Sun I. 193 Women and men sheaving the barley. 1893 Times 20 May 11/5 Thatching,..fence-building, mowing and sheaving are, we are assured, becoming lost arts. |
| intr. c 1600 Day Peregr. Schol. Wks. (1881) 78, I sawe a little world of people at worke, Some moweinge, some sheaveinge..some shockeinge, some loadeinge. |
| fig. 1652 Ashmole Theatr. Chem. Brit. Proleg. 13 As for the whole Worke it selfe, it is sheav'd up from a few gleanings in part of our English Fields. a 1711 Ken Hymnotheo Poet. Wks. 1721 III. 105 From ev'ry Star Our Maker chose the brightest Beams by far; Which sheav'd up in one Orb, the Sun produce. |
▪ IV. sheave, v.2
(ʃiːv)
Forms: 7 (–9) shieve, 9 sheave.
[Perh. repr. ME. schēve, OE. scéofan var. of sc{uacu}fan shove v.1]
intr. or absol. To back a boat, to work the oars backwards.
| 1611 Cotgr., Sier en arriere: C'est aller le derriere devant, to shieue, or fall a-sterne, (a tearme of Nauigation). 1687 Miege Gt. Fr. Dict. ii, To Shieve, or fall a-stern (a Term of Navigation), sier. 1894 R. C. Leslie Waterbiog. v. 102 Conant was to take charge of the tiller with one hand and the after-oar in the other, which he used standing in the stern-sheets, and ‘sheaving’ or shoving with it facing the boat's bow, gondolier fashion. 1895 Dialect Notes (Amer. Dial. Soc.) I. 381 (N. Brunswick, etc. word-list) Sheave, to hold water with the oar to stop the boat or turn more quickly. (Nfld.) 1911 S. Reynolds in Blackw. Mag. Feb. 190/2 One man was sheaving—standing up with bent back and rowing forwards—whilst the other man pulled in the ordinary manner. |
▪ V. sheave
obs. form of sheaf n.