Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Sheath

Sheath, n. [OE. schethe, AS. scǣð, sceáð, scēð; akin to OS. skēðia, D. scheede, G. scheide, OHG. sceida, Sw. skida, Dan. skede, Icel. skeiðir, pl., and to E. shed, v.t., originally meaning, to separate, to part. See Shed.] 1. A case for the reception of a sword, hunting knife, or other long and slender instrument; a scabbard.

The dead knight's sword out of his sheath he drew. Spenser.

2. Any sheathlike covering, organ, or part. Specifically: (a) (Bot.) The base of a leaf when sheathing or investing a stem or branch, as in grasses. (b) (Zoöl.) One of the elytra of an insect.

Medullary sheath. (Anat.) See under Medullary. — Primitive sheath. (Anat.) See Neurilemma. — Sheath knife, a knife with a fixed blade, carried in a sheath. — Sheath of Schwann. (Anat.) See Schwann's sheath.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.