sheets

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of sheet.

   He stacked the printed sheets neatly on the corner of the desk.

   The laundry line sagged under the weight of damp sheets.

   Note

   A regular plural that shares its spelling with the verb form, as in water sheets off a roof. As a noun it counts anything sheet-shaped: bed linen, paper, baking pans, thin layers of solid material. With paper, keep it apart from leaves. A sheet folded once in a book makes two leaves and four pages, so sheets and leaves mean the same thing only when nothing is folded.

2. 2
   nouncolloquialfigurativelyplural

   A great amount of rain or other precipitation coming down in broad, flat masses.

   We watched from the porch as sheets of rain swept across the empty parking lot.

   The storm dumped sheets of water on the valley within minutes.

   Similartorrents, curtains

   Note

   Here the word works only in the plural: rain falls so heavily that it seems to come down in flat curtains rather than drops. It usually appears in the frame sheets of followed by the precipitation, as in sheets of rain or sheets of water. It belongs to conversation and vivid description rather than to forecasts. The same picture drives the verb form, where rain simply sheets down.

3. 3
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of sheet.

   Water sheets off the steep roof and pools along the foundation.

   When the squall hits, rain sheets across the harbor in gray waves.

   Note

   The -s form serves two kinds of use. Without an object, it describes liquid moving as a broad film and usually needs a direction after it: water sheets off a roof, rain sheets across a harbor. With an object, it means covering or wrapping something in cloth or paper, or forming material into sheets. In sailing, it means trimming a sail using a sheet.

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