# leaf

> English word · Noun · IPA /liːf/ · frequency rank #4,958

## Definitions
1. The usually green and flat organ that represents the most prominent feature of most vegetative plants.
2. A foliage leaf or any of the many and often considerably different structures it can specialise into.
3. Anything resembling the leaf of a plant.
4. A sheet of a book, magazine, etc. (consisting of two pages, one on each face of the leaf).
5. A sheet of any substance beaten or rolled until very thin.
6. One of the individual flat or curved strips of metal, typically made of spring steel, that make up a leaf spring.
7. Tea leaves.
8. A flat section used to extend the size of a table.
9. A moveable panel, e.g. of a bridge or door, originally one that hinged but now also applied to other forms of movement.
10. In a tree, a node that has no descendants.
11. The layer of fat supporting the kidneys of a pig, leaf fat.
12. One of the teeth of a pinion, especially when small.
13. Cannabis.
14. A Canadian person.
15. A particular value of the EAX register when a program runs the CPUID instruction; each leaf represents a different category of information returned about the processor.

## Etymology
From Middle English leef, from Old English lēaf, from Proto-West Germanic *laub, from Proto-Germanic *laubą (“leaf”), from Proto-Indo-European *lowbʰ-o-m, from *lewbʰ- (“to cut off”).
Cognates
Cognate with Scots leaf (“leaf”), Yola laafe (“leaf”), North Frisian luuf (“leaf”), Saterland Frisian Loof (“leaf”), West Frisian leaf (“leaf”), Cimbrian loap (“leaf”), Dutch loof (“foliage”), German Laub (“leaves”), German Low German Loov (“leaf”), Luxembourgish Laf (“foliage, leaves”), Mòcheno lap (“leaf”), Vilamovian łaub, łaup, łojp (“leaf”), Danish løv (“leaf”), Faroese leyv (“leaf”), Icelandic lauf (“leaf”), Norwegian Bokmål lauv, løv (“leaf”), Norwegian Nynorsk lauv (“leaf”), Swedish löf, löv (“leaf”), Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐌿𐍆𐍃 (laufs, “leaf”); also Irish luibh (“herb, plant”), Latin liber (“bast; book”), Albanian labë (“rind”), Lithuanian lúobas (“bark; bast”), Polish łub (“bark”), Russian луб (lub, “bast”).
(Internet slang: Canadian): In reference to the maple leaf as national symbol.

## Easily confused with
- **LF** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-lf)
- **let** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-let)
- **LED** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-led)
- **lee** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-lee)
- **leg** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-leg)
- **leo** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-leo)
- **les** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-les)
- **lex** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-lex)
- **Len** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-len)
- **Lew** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-lew)
- **lei** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-lei)
- **lev** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-lev)
- **ley** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-ley)
- **loa** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-loa)
- **LEM** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-lem)
- **Lua** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-lua)
- **Leh** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-leh)
- **LIF** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-lif)
- **lel** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-lel)
- **left** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/leaf-vs-left)

## Common misspellings (5)
`elaf`, `laef`, `leaff`, `lefa`, `lleaf`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/leaf