Grothendieck Topology

A Grothendieck topology J on a category C is a collection, for each object c of C, of distinguished sieves on c, denoted by J(c) and called covering sieves of c. This selection will be subject to certain axioms, stated below. Continuing the previous example, a sieve S on an open set U in O(X) will be a covering sieve if and only if the union of all the open sets V for which S(V) is nonempty equals U; in other words, if and only if S gives us a collection of open sets which cover U in the classical sense.