Definition of "sheave" []

• To collect and bind into a sheaf. (verb-transitive)
• A wheel or disk with a grooved rim, especially one used as a pulley. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "One could generate far more energy by never walking down stairs; instead of walking down stairs, one would have a rope attached to a sheave, which is attached to an armature, which would act as brake to slow descent when one would ride down the rope to lower levels."
• "The front trolley-wheel, loose from long wear, had jumped the cable, and the cable was now jammed tightly between the wheel and the sheave-block."
• "And what little there was, — the slapping of a few reef-points and the creaking of a sheave in a block or two, — was ghostly under the hollow echoing pall in which we were swathed."