Meaning and Origin
What does the name Leaf mean? Keep reading to find the user submitted meanings, dictionary definitions, and more.
User Submitted Origins
- [Bot] 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.
- [Bot] 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.
- Something which is like a leaf in being wide and thin and having a flat surface, or in being attached to a larger body by one edge or end;as
- A part of a book or folded sheet containing two pages upon its opposite sides.
- A side, division, or part, that slides or is hinged, as of window shutters, folding doors, etc.
- The movable side of a table.
- A very thin plate; as, gold leaf .
- A portion of fat lying in a separate fold or layer.
- One of the teeth of a pinion, especially when small.
" They were both determined to turn over a new leaf." [Richardson.]
- A part of a book or folded sheet containing two pages upon its opposite sides.
Note: ☞ Such leaves usually consist of a blade, or lamina , supported upon a leafstalk or petiole, which, continued through the blade as the midrib, gives off woody ribs and veins that support the cellular texture. The petiole has usually some sort of an appendage on each side of its base, which is called the stipule. The green parenchyma of the leaf is covered with a thin epiderm pierced with closable microscopic openings, known as stomata.
Note: ☞ In this view every part of a plant, except the root and the stem, is either a leaf, or is composed of leaves more or less modified and transformed.
Etymology: OE. leef lef leaf, AS. leáf; akin to S. lōf, OFries. laf, D. loof foliage, G. laub, OHG. loub leaf, foliage, Icel. lauf, Sw. löf, Dan. löv, Goth. laufs; cf. Lith. lapas. Cf. Lodge
- Hinged or detachable flat section (as of a table or door)
- A sheet of any written or printed material (especially in a manuscript or book)
- The main organ of photosynthesis and transpiration in higher plants
- Produce leaves, of plants
- Turn over pages ("leaf through a book" and "leaf a manuscript")
- Look through a book or other written material ("She leafed through the volume")
From Middle English leef, from Old English lēaf, from Proto-Germanic *laubą (“leaf”) (compare West Frisian leaf, Low German Loov, Dutch loof, German Laub, Danish løv, Swedish löv, Norwegian Nynorsk lauv), from Proto-Indo-European *lowbʰ-o-m, from *lewbʰ- (“leaf, rind”) (compare Irish luibh (“herb”), Latin liber (“bast; book”), Lithuanian lúoba (“bark”), Albanian labë (“rind”), Latvian luba (“plank, board”), Russian луб (lub, “bast”)).
- The usually green and flat organ that represents the most prominent feature of most vegetative plants.
- Anything resembling the leaf of a plant.
- A sheet of any substance beaten or rolled until very thin.
- gold
- A sheet of a book, magazine, etc (consisting of two pages, one on each face of the leaf).
- Synonym: folium
- (in the plural) Tea leaves.
- A flat section used to extend the size of a table.
- A moveable panel, e.g. of a bridge or door, originally one that hinged but now also applied to other forms of movement.
- The train car has one single- and two double- doors per side.
- Hyponym: doorleaf
- Meronym: stile
- (botany) A foliage leaf or any of the many and often considerably different structures it can specialise into.
- (computing, mathematics) In a tree, a node that has no descendants.
- The layer of fat supporting the kidneys of a pig, leaf fat.
- One of the teeth of a pinion, especially when small.
- (slang) Marijuana.
leaf was also found in the following language(s): Old English, Scots, and West Frisian