a large rectangular piece of cloth that covers a mattress or that you lie under in bed
Maria tucked the clean sheet tightly under the mattress.
I changed the sheet after our guest left.
✦ Middle English "shete", from Old English "scēata" meaning a cloth or covering.
a thin flat piece of material such as paper, metal, or glass
Write your answers on a single sheet of paper.
The builder measured a sheet of plywood before cutting.
✦ Sense expanded from cloth to other flat materials in the 16th century.
a wide thin layer of something that spreads over a surface, such as ice, water, or flame
A thin sheet of ice covered the pond.
Lightning lit up a sheet of rain falling over the city.
✦ Metaphoric extension from flat cloth to flat natural layers appeared in the 17th century.
to cover something with a sheet of material
Workers sheeted the roof with corrugated metal.
Before painting, she sheets the floor with plastic.
✦ Verbal use recorded since the 18th century, derived from the noun sense of placing sheets over something.
(nautical) a rope or line used to control the angle of a sail to the wind
The helmsman eased the mainsail sheet to slow the boat.
Keep the jib sheet tight while we tack!
✦ From Middle Dutch “scheet” meaning ‘rope attached to a sail’; adopted into English nautical vocabulary in the 15th century.
to move, fall, or spread in a wide continuous layer
Rain sheeted down the mountainside.
Steam sheets across the kitchen when the lid is lifted.
✦ Figurative intransitive sense arose in the 19th century, influenced by imagery of water spreading like cloth.
