leaf
/lif/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.22 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The usually green and flat organ that represents the most prominent feature of most vegetative plants.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A foliage leaf or any of the many and often considerably different structures it can specialise into.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A sheet of a book, magazine, etc. (consisting of two pages, one on each face of the leaf).
Countable; Uncountable
noun
One of the individual flat or curved strips of metal, typically made of spring steel, that make up a leaf spring.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "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 the leaves and stems around them."
- "Heretofore advertisers have had to buy and pay for a leaf — two pages."
- "gold leaf"
- "Lumbering down a precipitous "slideway," the Thornycroft broke two main leaves in the back spring[.]"
- "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."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *lewbʰ-der.? Proto-Germanic *laubą Proto-West Germanic *laub Old English lēaf Middle English lef English leaf 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”). 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 slang: Canadian): In reference to the maple leaf as national symbol.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: lef, lēaf, *laub, *laubą, -
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /lif/
- British English: /liːf/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Medicine, People.
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
arrowleaf
babyleaf
beleaf
bigleaf
bitterleaf
bloodleaf
brightleaf
broadleaf
bumleaf
butterleaf
cloverleaf
copperleaf
Phrases
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