Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A wheel or disk with a grooved rim, especially one used as a pulley.
  • transitive verb To collect and bind into a sheaf.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To bring together into sheaves; collect into a sheaf or into sheaves.
  • noun A slice, as of bread; a cut.
  • noun A grooved wheel in a block, mast, yard, etc., on which a rope works; the wheel of a pulley; a shiver. See cut under block.
  • noun A sliding scutcheon for covering a keyhole.
  • noun The grooved wheel or disk on which a sliding door is carried upon a rail or track.
  • noun The disk or wheel over which a window-rope or -chain passes to the sash-weight.
  • noun The circular disk or body of an eccentric such as is used to operate the valves of steam-engines.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A wheel having a groove in the rim for a rope to work in, and set in a block, mast, or the like; the wheel of a pulley.
  • noun a channel cut in a mast, yard, rail, or other timber, in which to fix a sheave.
  • transitive verb To gather and bind into a sheaf or sheaves; hence, to collect.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A wheel having a groove in the rim for a rope to work in, and set in a block, mast, or the like; the wheel of a pulley.
  • verb to gather and bind into a sheaf

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English sheve; see skei- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From sheaf.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Akin to German Scheibe, late Old Norse skífa ("slice"). For more see shive.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

See sheaf.

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Examples

  • One could generate far more energy by never walking down stairs; instead of walking down stairs, one would have a rope attached to a sheave, which is attached to an armature, which would act as brake to slow descent when one would ride down the rope to lower levels.

    POOPTRICITY: Want Electricity? Flush Your Turbine Toilet! | Inhabitat 2008

  • The front trolley-wheel, loose from long wear, had jumped the cable, and the cable was now jammed tightly between the wheel and the sheave-block.

    The Banks of the Sacramento 2010

  • And what little there was, — the slapping of a few reef-points and the creaking of a sheave in a block or two, — was ghostly under the hollow echoing pall in which we were swathed.

    Chapter 25 2010

  • Each slender sheave of light is bound at the base for an elegant effect that emits a shower of warm light.

    LED Constellation Chandelier by Kenzan Tsutakawa-Chinn | Inhabitat 2008

  • One of these ends will be passed over a very big pulley or sheave at the bows, passed six times round a big barrel or drum; which will be turned round by a steam engine on deck, and thus wind up the cable, while the Elba slowly steams ahead.

    Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin 2005

  • He got to the top and found the problem: the wooden pin on which the sheave turned had bent, jamming the flanges sideways in the groove.

    A Furnace Afloat JOE JACKSON 2003

  • He rove the halyard through the hole and over the greased sheave.

    A Furnace Afloat JOE JACKSON 2003

  • For the past few days its sheave—the wooden wheel over which the rope passed—had stuck, the first sign when a block starts to deform.

    A Furnace Afloat JOE JACKSON 2003

  • The belly straightened in the lines, the sheave wheels squealed, and the timber grating slid ponderously down the bank into the river.

    The Seventh Scroll Smith, Wilbur 1995

  • Only because of its width it gets the form of a very flat cylinder, a sheave.

    2. Types of milling tools to be applied Dieter Frank 1990

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