Dictionaries › English

shelf

Pronunciation: /ʃɛlf/

The English word “shelf” has 5 meanings listed here.

noun

  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.
  2. The capacity of such an object
  3. A projecting ledge that resembles such an object.
  4. The part of a repository where shelvesets are stored.
  5. A reef, sandbar, or shoal.

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…

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “shelf” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.