SHEATH • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Sheath

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/ʃiθ/ Listen

noun

Sheath n.

A case for the reception of a sword, hunting knife, or other long and slender instrument; a scabbard. "The dead knight's sword out of his sheath he drew."

Any sheathlike covering, organ, or part. Specifically:

(a)

(Bot.) The base of a leaf when sheathing or investing a stem or branch, as in grasses.

(b)

(Zool.) One of the elytra of an insect.

Medullary sheath. (Anat.) See under Medullary.

Primitive sheath. (Anat.) See Neurilemma.

Sheath knife, a knife with a fixed blade, carried in a sheath.

Sheath of Schwann. (Anat.) See Schwann's sheath.

See images of 'Sheath'

Etymology of 'Sheath'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sheath" Quotes from Famous Books

... for the brave— Brave Kempenfelt is gone, His last sea-fight is fought, His work of glory done. It was not in the battle, No tempest gave the shock, She sprang no fatal leak, She ran upon no rock; His sword was in the sheath, His fingers held the pen, When Kempenfelt went down ...

— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... to take it out of the sheath, sonny darling," said the gentle, sad-eyed lady as she ...

— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... was forgotten now—I panted, thirsted, for his life. Once, indeed, in a sort of frenzy, when for an instant 15 we lay side by side with him, I drew my sheath knife and plunged it repeatedly into the blubber as if I were assisting ...

— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell

... pigments themselves on each other. The action of light is to bring about or to assist in the decomposition of the pigment. It is less marked in oil than in water color, because the oil forms a sort of sheath for the color particles. The manner in which light does its deteriorating work is somewhat similar to that of heat. The action of light is very slow, but it seems to do the same thing in a long time that heat would do in ...

— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... and idle to seek the actual history of this mysterious weapon. A writer of fiction could indeed produce some dark tale in the style of De Stendhal's 'Nouvelles,' and christen it 'The Crucifix of Crema.' And how delighted would Webster have been if he had chanced to hear of such a sword-sheath! He might have placed it in the hands of Bosola for the keener torment of his Duchess. Flamineo might have used it; or the disguised friars, who made the deathbed of Bracciano hideous, might have plunged it in the Duke's heart ...

— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

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