leavelet

English

Noun

leavelet (plural leavelets)

Rare form of leaflet.
1. A part of a plant.
  - 1824, William Hone, The Every-Day Book: and Table Book, volume III, London: William Tegg and Co., […], page 535:
    Go to a garden—go, and see, / Some rose-branch blushing on the tree; / And from that branch a rose-flower tear, / Then place it on thy bosom bare; / And as its leavelets fade and pine, / So fades my sinking heart in thine.
  - 1832, Robert Brindley, A Compendium of Naval Architecture, Arranged in Questions and Answers, […], Devonport: G. W. Hearle, […]; London: Sherwood, Gilbert, & Piper, pages 58–59:
    This tree, which flowers, according to Jacquer, in July, is represented by him as one of great beauty, attaining a height of 40 feet, with a trunk of six feet, divided above that into numerous branches, finished with abundance of shining opposite pinnate (or winged) leaves, consisting of 6 or 7 pair of oblong entire obtuse sessile alternate leavelets, without a terminal one, foot stalk of five inches in length; […]
  - 1845, B. L., “A Cedar of England”, in The Haileybury Observer, volume III, London: W[illia]m H[oughton] Allen and Co., […]; Hertford, Herts: Stephen Austin, […], page 95:
    Time may my rich dark leavelets blanch, / They shall wither;—my cherishing sap shall fail— / Though now I am proud, and each stalwart branch / Scarce bendeth a twig to the blustering gale.
  - 1863 April 25, Charles King Newcomb, edited by Judith Kennedy Johnson, The Journals of Charles King Newcomb, Providence, R.I.: Brown University, published 1946, page 166:
    The April showers have augmented into heavy rains, as if they had grown by what they fed on. They beat out, as with a mallet, the twigs into leavelets, & the buds into blossoms.
  - 1864, Scribbo Scribo [pseudonym], “Ode”, in Not at Home, and Other Poems, Shepton Mallet: […] A. Byrt, […], page 65:
    The nodding foliage, where ye lately found / A couch aye yielding to your gentleness— / Whiles it did leap with joy to hear your song, / And waved responsive to its symphonies— / These will return as plenteously as erst: / The morning wear again its old delight; / The eve all readily its golden death / Embrace; again be heard the babbling stream / As sweeps it on its way rejoicing; / Again among the various leavelets / Play wantonly will ye; and then forgot / Will be your song, when sorrowing ceases.
  - 1865 June, Nature Study, Jamaica; quoted in Elaine Evans Dee, To Embrace the Universe: Drawings by Frederic Edwin Church, Yonkers, N.Y.: The Hudson River Museum, 1984, page 60:
    Dead leaves/caught among the leavelets
  - 1869, [William Spink?], Lesko, Prince of Poland. A Tragedy., London: Chapman and Hall, […], page 93:
    Live out, pale flower; yellow leavelets play; / And you, ye trembling lingerers in the wood, / That wail of olden summer, to you I hie; / Together we will sigh the time away.
  - 1874, Harrison Allen, Outlines of Comparative Anatomy and Medical Zoology, 2nd edition, Philadelphia, Pa.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott & Co., page 57:
    Thus, the gills may be exposed in tufts upon the back, as in Doris; or arranged on either side of the body, in a furrow between the mantle and the foot, transversely, in a single row, as in Phyllidia; or composed of divided lamellæ resembling divided leaves, as in Aplysia (sea-hare); or foliaceous, or pyramidal, arranged in rows on either side under the margin of mantle, as in Chiton; or composed of numerous leavelets, arranged parallel, like the teeth of a comb, as in Paludina (fresh-water snail).
  - 1879, Julian Home [pseudonym; Edward Richard Christie], “Clare College”, in Sketches of Cambridge, in Verse, first series, London: Newman and Co., […], part III, page 87:
    Still I hear the river babble, / As it stops perchance to dabble / With the pebbles, or the rabble / Of conglomerating stones; / Hear it murmur sweetly singing, / With the water-plover winging / O’er its waves, these silver ringing, / Clear wild monotones— / Gurgling, babbling, singing, / Rolling on; / Flowers and leavelets bringing, / Rich in song: / Through the grey and marshy flats, / And the rye and barley plats, / Swiftly winging!
  - 1902, Practical Druggist and Pharmaceutical Review of Reviews, volumes 11–12, page 384:
    Give the Latin official name for three official barks, five official leaves, two official leavelets, four official rhizomes, six official roots, two official resins, three official gum-resins, two official gums, two official flowers, five official fruits, four official seeds, and three official woods.
  - 1904, American Gardening, page 62:
    The leaves of the vetches and vetchlings are pinate^[sic]—they bear a number of opposite ovate leavelets.
  - 1909, Fire and Water Engineering, volume 46, page 219, column 3:
    Of the Chara and Nitella, closely allied to the filamenteous algea,^[sic] but distinguished therefrom in their resemblance to the higher plants by having stems, branches, leavelets, etc.
  - 1909, Journal of the New England Water Works Association, volume 23, page 346:
    […] order are closely allied to the filamentous algæ, but are distinguished therefrom in their resemblance to the higher plants by having stems, branches, leavelets, etc.
  - 1924, Amadeus William Grabau, Stratigraphy of China, part I (Palæozoic and Older), page 374:
    The so-called Ginkgo sandstone is however, of more doubtful age, “being characterized by numerous Psygmophyllum-like leavelets of unknown affinity and containing for the rest only little significant species of Tæniopteris and Baiera.”
  - 1980, Walters Art Gallery, Jewelry, Ancient to Modern, Viking Press, →ISBN, page 243:
    The blossom emerges from a long, etched gold stem from which spring three leavelets or spathes rendered in demantoid garnets mounted à jour in gold frames.
  - 1996, “Again and again”, in Poet Lore, volume 91, Writer’s Center:
    It started with a swelling in the flower bed; by the arbor vitae, the newly moistened mulch quickened, swelled, and extruded tiny leavelets, olive with a tinge of purple that balked at the unusual sun.
  - 1986, Robert M. Ellis, “Love poem”, in North Cape: Selected Poems of a Poet Turned Philosopher, [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu.com, published 2011, →ISBN, page 41:
    And the half-unclenched leavelets shiver, baring cold green in warm breezes, till from the river’s mirror ray-drawn rises mist, and in folding showers dry searchings cease.
  - 1994, Wilhelm Pfeffer, edited by Toshio Kawasaki, Yoshio Masuda, and Masashi Tazawa, Pfeffer’s Notes on Pflanzenphysiologie, Research Institute for Bioresources, Okayama University, →ISBN, page 195:
    According to the shape and the insertion of the pinnules, a special movement of the leavelets results.
  - 2006 January 30, Michael Rovin, “Gems for stems: Bling for your blossoms”, in Weekly World News, page 8:
    Among the different types of Plantz are ‘stem-laces,’ ‘leavelets,’ and ‘twig rings.’
2. A small sheet of paper.
  - (Can we date this quote?), Moonshine: The Best Tropical Comic Paper, page 313:
    Our industries took leave; the Cobden Club published leavelets.
  - 1942 February 13, Henry Handel Richardson [pseudonym; Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson], edited by Clive Probyn, Bruce Steele, and Rachel Solomon, Henry Handel Richardson: The Letters, volume 3 (1934–1946), Carlton, Vic.: The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Press, published 2000, →ISBN, page 562:
    And hope from my heart you won’t be called on to bear a quarter of what we did in the year following the collapse of France, etc. I can hardly think it possible, with your great distances, though you may come in for some sporadic raids. Or showers of leavelets, urging you to become Japanese! Oh what fools these orientals be!
  - 1985, Financial Mail, numbers 1–4, page 166:
    We handle preparations of adverts, leavelets, newsletters, brochures, letterheads etc. from design and layouts, writing copy, typesetting and supplying proofs.

Usage notes

Although this form has seen some use in poetry especially, it is likely to be considered nonstandard now. Compare leaveless.