leafing

leaf

L0086500 (lēf) n. pl. leaves (lēvz) 1. A usually green, flattened, lateral structure attached to a stem and functioning as a principal organ of photosynthesis and transpiration in most plants. 2. A leaflike organ or structure. 3. a. Leaves considered as a group; foliage. b. The state or time of having or showing leaves: trees in full leaf. 4. The leaves of a plant used or processed for a specific purpose: large supplies of tobacco leaf. 5. Any of the sheets of paper bound in a book, each side of which constitutes a page. 6. a. A very thin sheet of material, especially metal. b. Such leaves considered as a group: covered in gold leaf. 7. a. A hinged or removable section for a table top. b. A hinged or otherwise movable section of a folding door, shutter, or gate. c. A section of drawbridge that moves upward or to the side. 8. One of several metal strips forming a leaf spring. v. leafed, leaf·ing, leafs v. intr. 1. To produce leaves; put forth foliage: trees just beginning to leaf. 2. To turn pages, as in searching or browsing: leafed through the catalog. v. tr. To turn through the pages of. Phrasal Verb: leaf out To put forth leaves, especially after a period of dormancy: the period in the spring when trees begin to leaf out. Idioms: take a leaf from (someone) To use (someone) as an example. take a leaf from (or out of) (someone's) bookTo use (someone) as an example.

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[Middle English, from Old English lēaf.]

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

leafing - (botany) the process of forming leavesfoliationphytology, botany - the branch of biology that studies plantsgrowing, growth, ontogenesis, ontogeny, maturation, development - (biology) the process of an individual organism growing organically; a purely biological unfolding of events involved in an organism changing gradually from a simple to a more complex level; "he proposed an indicator of osseous development in children"