sheath
noun · verb
Simple meaning
An enveloping structure or covering enclosing an animal or plant organ or part.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
sheethIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈʃiθ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An enveloping structure or covering enclosing an animal or plant organ or part
A holster for a sword; a scabbard.
by extension
Anything that has a similar shape to a scabbard that is used to hold an object that is longer than it is wide.
electrical engineering
The insulating outer cover of an electrical cable.
zoology
The foreskin of certain animals (for example, dogs and horses).
entomology
One of the elytra of an insect.
verb
Uncommon spelling of sheathe.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An enveloping structure or covering enclosing an animal or plant organ or part
Used this way, sheath is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.