noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The knotted or entangled part of silk or thread. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   Silk not yet twisted; floss. countable, uncountable

   "Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care."

Verb

1. 1
   To separate, as threads; to divide, as a collection of threads.

Synonyms

All synonyms

sleysley

Example

More examples

"Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care."

Etymology

Compare Danish slöife, a loose knot, Swedish slejf (“a knot of ribbon”), German Schleife (“a loop”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.