a large rectangular piece of cotton, linen, or other material used as an article of bedding, commonly spread in pairs so that one is immediately above and the other immediately below the sleeper.
2.
a broad, relatively thin, surface, layer, or covering.
3.
a relatively thin, usually rectangular form, piece, plate, or slab, as of photographic film, glass, metal, etc.
4.
material, as metal or glass, in the form of broad, relatively thin pieces.
a rectangular piece of paper or parchment, especially one on which to write.
7.
a newspaper or periodical.
8.
Printingand Bookbinding. a large, rectangular piece of printing paper, especially one for printing a complete signature.
9.
Philately. the impression from a plate or the like on a single sheet of paper before any division of the paper into individual stamps.
10.
an extent, stretch, or expanse, as of fire or water: sheets of flame.
11.
a thin, flat piece of metal or a very shallow pan on which to place food while baking.
12.
Geology. a more or less horizontal mass of rock, especially volcanic rock intruded between strata or poured out over a surface.
13.
Mathematics.
a.
one of the separate pieces making up a geometrical surface: a hyperboloid of two sheets.
b.
one of the planes or pieces of planes making up a Riemann surface.
14.
Crystallography. a type of crystal structure, as in mica, in which certain atoms unite strongly in two dimensions to form a layer that is weakly joined to others.
Origin: before 900; Middle English shete,Old English scēte (north), scīete, derivative of scēat corner, lap, sheet, region; cognate with Dutch schoot,German Schoss,Old Norse skaut
a rope or chain for extending the clews of a square sail along a yard.
b.
a rope for trimming a fore-and-aft sail.
c.
a rope or chain for extending the lee clew of a course.
verb (used with object)
2.
Nautical. to trim, extend, or secure by means of a sheet or sheets.
Idiom
3.
three sheets in/to the wind, Slang. intoxicated.
Origin: 1300–50; Middle English shete, shortening of Old English scēatlīne, equivalent to scēat(a) lower corner of a sail (see sheet1) + līneline1, rope; cognate with Low German schote
"rope that controls a sail," O.E. sceatline "sheet-line," from sceata "lower part of sail," originally "piece of cloth," from same root as sheet (1) (q.v.). The sense transferred to the rope by 1294. This is probably the notion in phrase three sheets to the wind "drunk and
disorganized," first recorded 1821, an image of a sloop-rigged sailboat whose three sheets have slipped through the blocks are lost to the wind, thus out of control.
n. a criminal record listing all recorded criminal charges. (See also rap.) : The sergeant asked if there was a sheet on the prisoner.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition. Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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