Noun

(en-noun)

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

* 1593 , (William Shakespeare), Titus Andronicus , Act V, Scene III, line 70:

O, let me teach you how to knit again / This scattered corn into one mutual sheaf , / These broken limbs again into one body.

* (rfdate) (John Dryden):

The reaper fills his greedy hands, / And binds the golden sheaves in brittle bands.

Any collection of things bound together; a bundle.

a sheaf of paper

A bundle of arrows sufficient to fill a quiver, or the allowance of each archer.

* (rfdate) (John Dryden):

The sheaf of arrows shook and rattled in the case.

A quantity of arrows, usually twenty-four.

* 1786 , Francis Grose, A Treatise on Ancient Armour and Weapons , page 34:

Arrows were anciently made of reeds, afterwards of cornel wood, and occasionally of every species of wood: but according to Roger Ascham, ash was best; arrows were reckoned by sheaves', a ' sheaf consisted of twenty-four arrows.

(mechanical) A sheave.

(mathematics) An abstract construct in topology that associates data to the open sets of a topological space, together with well-defined restrictions from larger to smaller open sets, subject to the condition that compatible data on overlapping open sets corresponds, via the restrictions, to a unique datum on the union of the open sets.

*

Noun

(en noun)

A substantial, often approximately cuboid, piece of any substance.

*

You young porkers who are sitting in front of me, every one of you will scream your lives out at the block within a year.

A block of ice.

A block of stone.

Anne Boleyn placed her head on the block and awaited her execution.

A group of urban lots of property, several acres in extent, not crossed by public streets.

I'm going for a walk around the block .

A residential building consisting of flats.

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)

, title=(The China Governess) , chapter=Foreword citation , passage=He turned back to the scene before him and the enormous new block' of council dwellings. The design was some way after Corbusier but the ' block was built up on plinths and resembled an Atlantic liner swimming diagonally across the site.}}

A block of flats.

The distance from one street to another in a city that is built (approximately) to a grid pattern.

The place you are looking for is two long blocks''' east and one short '''block north.

(slang) The human head.

I'll knock your block off.

A wig block: a simplified head model upon which wigs are worn.

* 1851 , (Herman Melville), (Moby Dick) ,

Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, for a block , I settled my own and comrade’s bill; using, however, my comrade’s money.

A mould on which hats, bonnets, etc., are shaped.

* Shakespeare

He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block .

A set of sheets (of paper) joined together at one end.

A block of 100 tickets.

(computing) A logical data storage unit containing one or more physical sectors (see cluster).

(computing) A region of code in a program that acts as a single unit, such as a function or loop.

(cryptography) A fixed-length group of bits making up part of a message.

(rigging) A case with one or more sheaves/pulleys, used with ropes to increase or redirect force, for example, as part of the rigging of a sailing ship.

(chemistry) A portion of a macromolecule, comprising many units, that has at least one feature not present in adjacent portions.

Something that prevents something from passing (see blockage).

There's a block in the pipe that means the water can't get through.

(sports) An action to interfere with the movement of an opposing player or of the object of play (ball, puck).

* {{quote-news, year=2011

, date=February 12 , author=Oliver Brett , title=Sunderland 1–2 Tottenham , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=The match proved an unedifying spectacle until Spurs won a corner following their first move of real quality, John Mensah making an important block with Jermain Defoe poised to strike. }}

(cricket) A shot played by holding the bat vertically in the path of the ball, so that it loses momentum and drops to the ground.

(volleyball) A defensive play by one or more players meant to deflect a spiked ball back to the hitter’s court.

(philately) A joined group of four (or in some cases nine) postage stamps, forming a roughly square shape.

A section of split logs used as fuel.

(UK) Solitary confinement.

A cellblock.

(falconry) The perch on which a bird of prey is kept.

(printing, dated) A piece of hard wood on which a stereotype or electrotype plate is mounted.

(obsolete) A blockhead; a stupid fellow; a dolt.

* Shakespeare

What a block art thou!

A section of a railroad where the block system is used.