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shelf
[ shelf ]
noun
- a thin slab of wood, metal, etc., fixed horizontally to a wall or in a frame, for supporting objects.
- the contents of this:
a shelf of books.
- a surface or projection resembling this; ledge.
- Physical Geography.
- a sandbank or submerged extent of rock in the sea or river.
- the bedrock underlying an alluvial deposit or the like.
- Archery. the upper part of the bow hand, on which the arrow rests.
shelf
/ ʃɛ /
noun
- a thin flat plank of wood, metal, etc, fixed horizontally against a wall, etc, for the purpose of supporting objects
- something resembling this in shape or function
- the objects placed on a shelf, regarded collectively
a shelf of books
- a projecting layer of ice, rock, etc, on land or in the sea See also continental shelf
- mining a layer of bedrock hit when sinking a shaft
- archery the part of the hand on which an arrow rests when the bow is grasped
- See off the shelf
- on the shelfput aside or abandoned: used esp of unmarried women considered to be past the age of marriage
verb
- slang.tr to inform upon
shelf
Derived Forms
- ˈˌ, adjective
Other Word Forms
- l adjective
Word History and Origins
Origin of shelf1
Word History and Origins
Origin of shelf1
Idioms and Phrases
- off the shelf, readily available from merchandise in stock:
Any of those parts can be purchased off the shelf.
- on the shelf, Informal.
- put aside temporarily; postponed.
- inactive; useless.
- without prospects of marriage, as after having broken an engagement.
More idioms and phrases containing shelf
see off the shelf ; on the shelf .Example Sentences
My fridge used to be a shrine to burnout — shelves of vitamins, maybe a jar of mustard, nothing resembling a meal.
"My philosophy is buy as many things as you can off the shelf. So all our motors, batteries, computers, cameras, they're all commercially available, mass produced parts," he says.
But if ice shelves are lost, the glaciers behind can speed up, depositing more and more ice into the ocean and raising sea levels worldwide.
“This order,” he said, “it’s a wonderful order. It’s a beautiful order. This order is pulling American booze off the liquor mart shelves.”
I always know when I’m feeling blue, because I feel the gravitational pull of my long shelf of P.G.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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