shelve
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ʃɛlv/
rhymes: -ɛlv
Forms: form: shelves
form: shelving
form: shelved
form: shelved
Etymology: The verb is a back-formation from shelves, the plural of shelf (“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”).
The noun is derived from sense 2 (“(obsolete) to hang over or project like a shelf”).
Senses: examples: text: to shelve a closet or a library
glosses: To furnish (a place) with shelves; especially, to furnish (a library, etc.) with bookshelves.
examples: text: The library needs volunteers to help shelve books.
text: Before breakfast I employed myself in airing my old bibliomaniacal hobby, entering all the books lately acquired into a temporary catalogue, so as to have them shelved and marked.
ref: 1827 July 1 (date written), Walter Scott, “[Entry dated 1 July 1827]”, in David Douglas, editor, The Journal of Sir Walter Scott […], volume II, Edinburgh: David Douglas, published 1890, →OCLC, page 1:
antonyms: deshelve
unshelve
glosses: To place (something) on a shelf; especially, to place or arrange (books) on a bookshelf.
examples: text: I love shelving ecstasy!
ref: 2002 June 4, Anthony Hodges, “Drugs Seized by Customs”, in alt.anagrams (Usenet):
text: I had a funny conversation with my dad last night about shelving. It's when you shelve a pill up your bum. It was a lovely dinner conversation. […] My parents were like, in our generation we didn't snort pills, we used to drop them because it's so bad to snort. I was like, Yeah, what about shelving? They were like What? I was, Oh no, I thought you'd know.
ref: 2011 June 19, Frances Morton, quoting Emma, “School daze”, in Shayne Currie, editor, The Herald on Sunday, Auckland: New Zealand Media and Entertainment, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 20 Apr 2022:
text: Some people use Ecstasy using a method known as "shafting" or "shelving" which involves inserting a pill or tablet into the anus.
ref: 2013 February 22, Edward J. Benavidez, “Effects of Ecstasy”, in Getting High: The Effects of Drugs, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 65:
text: Amphetamines and ATS can be smoked, snorted, injected, or taken orallym, including rubbing on gums. Occasionally, they are taken anally (‘shelving’).
ref: 2016, “Pharmacology and Pathophysiology”, in John B. Saunders [et al.], editors, Addiction Medicine (Oxford Specialist Handbooks), 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 44:
glosses: To place (something) in a certain location, as if on a shelf.
To take (drugs) by anal or vaginal insertion.
glosses: To place (something) in a certain location, as if on a shelf.
To have sex with (someone).
synonyms: word: Formal terms
word: bed
word: coit
word: coitize
word: dight
word: enjoy
word: feague
word: go in unto
word: go to bed with
word: have
word: know
word: lie by
word: lie with
word: love
word: mount
word: occupy
word: penetrate
word: season
word: seduce
word: sleep with
word: take
word: Any of Thesaurus:copulate + "with"
word: Informal and slang terms
word: ball
word: bang
word: bauf
word: beep
word: be with
word: bone
word: boff
word: boink
word: bonk
word: boom-boom
word: dick
word: diddle
word: dig out
word: do
word: doink
word: drill
word: eff
word: expletive deleted
word: feck
word: fill
word: frack
word: frak
word: frick
word: frig
word: fuck
word: get into someone's pants
word: get over on
word: get up in
word: give someone one
word: give someone the time
word: go with
word: have one's way with
word: have one's wicked way with
word: hit
word: hump
word: jape
word: jump
word: jump someone's bones
word: knob
word: knock
word: knock off
word: know someone in the biblical sense
word: lay
word: love up
word: make
word: nail
word: plough
word: plug
word: poke
word: pork
word: pound
word: prig
word: pump
word: ream
word: rock
word: roger
word: root
word: run through
word: rut
word: sard
word: schlong
word: screw
word: see to
word: service
word: shaft
word: shag
word: shelve
word: slay
word: slip it to
word: smash
word: smush
word: stallionize
word: swive
word: tap
word: tup
word: wap
examples: text: They shelved the entire project when they heard how much it would cost.
text: [T]he Circumlocution Office, being reminded that my lords had arrived at no decision, shelved the business.
ref: 1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, “Containing the Whole Science of Government”, in Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC, book the first (Poverty), page 87:
text: Among the schemes that have been shelved is one for the electrification of the railway between Bergen and Oslo. [Electrification was completed in 1964.]
ref: 1950 April, “The Mountain Section of the Bergen-Oslo Railway”, in The Railway Magazine, London: Tothill Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 223:
text: The arrival of the new Birmingham units on the West Highland line suggests that a scheme to use 16 of the next batch of English Electric Type 4s previously allotted to the Scottish Region, Nos. D357–D384, on the West Highland and Callander-Oban lines has been shelved.
ref: 1961 October, “Motive Power Miscellany: Scottish Region”, in Trains Illustrated, London: Ian Allan Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 636:
text: When we shelve our pain, it doesn't go away. Rather, it festers in a myriad of ways. We need to undersand that strength and grief fit together. We must be strong to handle grief, and in the end, grief brings out strengths we never knew we had.
ref: 2005, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, David Kessler, “The Inner World of Grief”, in On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief through the Five Stages of Loss, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, published August 2014, →ISBN, page 102:
glosses: To set aside (something), as if on a shelf.
To postpone or put aside, or entirely cease dealing with (a matter for discussion, a project, etc.).
synonyms: mothball#Verb
pigeonhole#Verb
table#Verb
halt#Verb
quit
stop#Verb
examples: text: The time, too, nearly ripe for his great schemes, made it doubly necessary that he should exert himself, and prevent being shelved with a plausible excuse of tender compassion for his infirmities.
ref: 1838, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter I, in Alice or The Mysteries […], volume III, London: Saunders and Otley, […], →OCLC, book IX, page 90:
glosses: To set aside (something), as if on a shelf.
To remove (someone) from active service.
examples: text: Her chamber is aloft, far from the ground, / And built ſo ſheluing, that one cannot climbe it / VVithout apparent hazard of his life.
ref: c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], page 29, column 2:
glosses: To hang over or project like a shelf; to overhang.
Derived terms: word: deshelve
word: misshelve
word: reshelve
word: shelvement
word: shelver
word: shelveset
word: shelving
word: unshelve