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shelf

nounverbnounverbcommon in dialogue

  • //ʃɛlf//

A flat, rigid structure, fixed at right angles to a wall or forming a part of a cabinet, desk, etc., and used to display, store, or support objects.

noun

  1. 1

    A flat, rigid structure, fixed at right angles to a wall or forming a part of a cabinet, desk, etc., and used to display, store, or support objects.

    We keep the old newspapers on the bottom shelf of the cupboard, and our photos on the top shelf.

    Localities across New Jersey imposed curfews to prevent looting. In Monmouth, Ocean and other counties, people waited for hours for gasoline at the few stations that had electricity. Supermarket shelves were stripped bare.

  2. 2

    The capacity of such an object

    a shelf of videos

  3. 3

    A projecting ledge that resembles such an object.

    In 1981, China's Ministry of Geology surveyed the Taiwan Banks area and reported the following features: The Southern Basin (Taiwan Qian Tan) is situated approximately 200 km (124 mi) south-east of Swatao City and about 10 km (6.2 mi) south of the Taiwan Banks on the transition between shelf and slope in water depths of 50 to 200 m (164 to 656 ft).

  4. 4

    The part of a repository where shelvesets are stored.

    This is where the Visual Studio Shelving function can help. A shelf is a place on the server in source control that is separate from the main code line so it will not affect other developers.

    A shelveset allows you to store a changeset on the server without adding it to the current codebase and sharing it with team members directly. Each team member has his own “shelf,” where he can store as many shelvesets as he wants.

Etymology

From Middle English schelfe, probably from Old English sċylfe, sċilfe (“shelf, ledge, deck of a ship”), from Proto-West Germanic *skilfijā, from Proto-Germanic *skelfō (“shelf, ledge, cliff”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelH- (“to cut”), distantly related to sculpt, carve and shell. Cognate with Dutch schelf (“hay loft, haystack”), German Low German Schelf (“haystack”), Old Norse skjalf (“bench”).

verb

  1. 1

    Variant of shelveAlternative form of shelve.

noun

  1. 1

    A reef, sandbar, or shoal.

    But with a ſlaw ſuddein chauffing ſtorm-bringer Orion, / Spurnt vs too the waters: then ſootherne ſwaſhruter huffling / Flung vs on high ſhelueflats, to the rocks vs he buffeted after.

    The Marchant that returnes from ſome far forrain lands, / Eſcaping dreadfull rocks and dangerous ſhelfs and ſands, / When as he ſees his ſhip her home-hauen enter ſafe, / Will he repine at God, and as offended chafe / For being brought to ſoone home to his natiue ſoile, / Free from all perills ſad that threaten ſaylor’s ſpoile?

    Scopuloſo, full of rocks, ſhelfs, flats, or dangers by ſea.

    [T]he greateſt of their Galliaſſes fell foule vpon another ſhip, and loſt her Rudder, ſo that guideleſſe ſhe droue vvith the tide vpon a ſhelue in the ſhoare of Callis, vvhere ſhee vvas aſſaulted by the Engliſh.

Etymology

Of obscure origin; evidently identical to Middle English shelp (“sandbar in a river”), but the sound shift is unexpected. Shelp might be from Old English scylp (“crag”) or Middle Dutch schelp-.

verb

  1. 1

    Variant of shelveAlternative form of shelve.

Forms

plural
shelves, shelfs
past tense
shelfed
past participle
shelfed
present participle
shelfing
third person singular
shelfs
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).