leaf

Meanings

Noun

• 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.
• A sheet of a book, magazine, etc (consisting of two pages, one on each face of the leaf).
• Two pages.
• 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.
• A foliage leaf or any of the many and often considerably different structures it can specialise into.
• 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.
• Cannabis.
• A Canadian person.

Verb

• To produce leaves; put forth foliage.
• To divide (a vegetable) into separate leaves.

Related

Similar words

• phyllon
• leave

Origin

• From Middle English leef, from Old English lēaf, from Proto-West Germanic *laub, 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, from *lewbʰ- (compare Irish luibh ("herb"), Latin liber ("bast; book"), Lithuanian lúoba ("bark"), Albanian labë ("rind"), Latvian luba ("plank, board"), Russian луб ("bast")).
• In reference to the maple leaf as national symbol.