Etymograph

English

sheaf

Sheaf comes from Old English sċēaf ‘sheaf, bundle’, and goes back to Proto-Germanic *skauba-.

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*skauba-reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*skaub‘bundle, sheaf’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150sċēaf‘sheaf, bundle’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500scheef
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1588–1593sheaf

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

Earlier history uncertain.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Germanicc. 500 BCE–200 CE*skauba-reconstructed
  2. Proto-West Germanicc. 200–500 CE*skaub‘bundle, sheaf’reconstructed
  3. Old Englishc. 450–1150sċēaf‘sheaf, bundle’
  4. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500scheef
  5. Englishearliest quotation c. 1588–1593sheaf

Earliest quotation: c. 1588–1593, William Shakespeare, The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus: “O, let me teach you how to knit again…”

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewp- ‘tuft, cluster, hair on the head’

coif, 2 more

Today it means

noun A quantity of the stalks and ears of wheat, rye, or other grain, bound together; a bundle of grain or straw.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Proto-Germanic *skauba- / sheaf

Shirt and support for this word