Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A sheaf; a handful.
  • noun Specifically Twenty-four sheaves of grain set up in the field, forming two stooks, or shocks of twelve sheaves each.
  • noun The number of two dozen; hence, an indefinite number; a considerable number.

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

  • noun Prov. Eng. Twenty-four (in some places, twelve) sheaves of wheat; a shock, or stook.
  • noun obsolete, obsolete The number of two dozen; also, an indefinite number; a bunch; a company; a throng.

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

  • noun UK, dialect, obsolete Twenty-four (or in some places, twelve) sheaves of wheat; a shock, or stook.
  • noun UK, dialect, obsolete Two dozen, or similar indefinite number; a bunch; a throng.

Etymologies

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Examples

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  • 24 sheaves of wheat.

    April 21, 2009

  • 24 sheaves of grain - whether it be wheat, or corn, or other grain; the harvest from which, threshed, is another connotation, that of an indefinite or innumerable number.

    March 13, 2011

  • The harvesters' task is to shave
    The field of its ripe golden wave,
    And once it is shorn
    To bind up the corn
    By sheaf into stook and then thrave.

    March 12, 2015