leaf

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The fly leaf is inscribed "To J. Walter Wilson with the undying regard of a regular feller who knows another regular feller thoroughly but loves him still; also when he isn't still."

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Definitions (55)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (14)

  1. noun A usually green, flattened, lateral structure attached to a stem and functioning as a principal organ of photosynthesis and transpiration in most plants.
  2. noun A leaflike organ or structure.
  3. noun Leaves considered as a group; foliage.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (34)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (6)

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Examples

  • The fly leaf is inscribed "To J. Walter Wilson with the undying regard of a regular feller who knows another regular feller thoroughly but loves him still; also when he isn't still." —  VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol V No 2
  • My part will, I trust, vanish in due time, and the law turn out to have been, after all, only the imperfect gospel, just as the leaf is the imperfect flower. —  The Vicar's Daughter
  • If the insect alights upon the disk of the leaf, the viscid secretion holds it fast--at least, an ordinary fly is unable to escape--its struggles only increase the number of glands involved and the amount of excitement; this is telegraphed to the surrounding and successively longer tentacles, which bent over in succession, so that within ten to thirty hours, if the leaf is active and the fly large enough, every one of the glands (on the average, nearly two hundred in number) will be found applied to the body of the insect. —  Darwiniana; Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism
  • The pattern of the leaf is then not visible and the rugged leaf edges are unidentifiable as a leaf, unless it's turned upside down. —  Epinions Recent Content for Home
  • 'Over the leaf is a letter to my mother.' —  Life Of Johnson
 

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Leaf has been looked up 249 times, favorited 0 times, listed 34 times, and commented on 0 times.

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

leave ·  blossom ·  flower ·  twig ·  foliage ·  fruit ·  seed ·  bark ·  root ·  grass ·  stem ·  bud
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Old English lēaf.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English leef, lef (plural leves), from Anglo-Saxon leáf (plural leáf) = Old Saxon lōbh = OFries. laf = Dutch loof = Middle Low German lōf = Old High German loub, loup, Middle High German loup, German laub = Icelandic lauf = Swedish löf = Danish löv = Gothic (Moesogothic) laufs, a leaf. Cf. Lithuanian lāpas = Russian lepeste, a leaf, Greek λέπος, λεπίς, a scale (see lepis). For the L. and Greek words for ‘leaf,’ see foil. Hence ult. lobby, lodge; in comp. Middle English lefsel.
  2. from leaf, n. Cf. leave, v.
 

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