sleeve.
The part of a garment that covers the arm.
Meaning & usage
The part of a garment that covers the arm.
The sleeves on my coat are too long.
A (usually tubular) covering or lining to protect a piece of machinery etc.
This bearing requires a sleeve so the shaft will fit snugly.
A protective jacket or case, especially for a record, containing art and information about the contents; also the analogous leaflet found in a packaged CD.
A tattoo covering the whole arm.
A narrow channel of water.
Sleave; untwisted thread.
A serving of beer smaller than a pint, typically measuring between 12 and 16 ounces.
A long, cylindrical plastic bag of cookies or crackers, or a similar package of disposable drinking cups.
A double tube of copper into which the ends of bare wires are pushed so that when the tube is twisted an electrical connection is made. The joint thus made is called a McIntire joint.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English sleve, slefe, from Old English slīef and slīefe (“sleeve”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Sleeuwe (“sleeve”), West Frisian slúf, Dutch sloof (“apron”), Low German sluve, dialectal German Schlaube. The Canadian sense of “measure smaller than a pint” is due to a former conflict between federal law and provincial law in British Columbia. According to federal law, a pint must be 20 imperial ounces (~568 ml), but according to provincial law at the time, the maximum individual serving size was 500 ml, so an individual portion could not be called a “pint” in British Columbia, and required a different term. The provincial law has been changed, allowing servings of up to 24 oz (~682 ml), but the term remains in use. The term sleeve itself for a cylindrical glass of beer is also found in the UK and Australia (as sleever), and may be due to stacked glasses resembling a sleeve.
To fit and attach a sleeve to an upper garment (e.g. to a shirt, blouse, sweater, jacket, coat, etc.) or to a folder.
To hide something up one's sleeve.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English sleve, slefe, from Old English slīef and slīefe (“sleeve”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Sleeuwe (“sleeve”), West Frisian slúf, Dutch sloof (“apron”), Low German sluve, dialectal German Schlaube. The Canadian sense of “measure smaller than a pint” is due to a former conflict between federal law and provincial law in British Columbia. According to federal law, a pint must be 20 imperial ounces (~568 ml), but according to provincial law at the time, the maximum individual serving size was 500 ml, so an individual portion could not be called a “pint” in British Columbia, and required a different term. The provincial law has been changed, allowing servings of up to 24 oz (~682 ml), but the term remains in use. The term sleeve itself for a cylindrical glass of beer is also found in the UK and Australia (as sleever), and may be due to stacked glasses resembling a sleeve.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.