shape
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: shāp
ipa: /ʃeɪp/
rhymes: -eɪp
Forms: form: shapes
Etymology: From Middle English shap, schape, from Old English ġesceap (“shape, form, created being, creature, creation, dispensation, fate, condition, sex, gender, genitalia”), from Proto-West Germanic *ga- + *skap, from Proto-Germanic *ga- + *skapą (“shape, nature, condition”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kep- (“to split, cut”).
The verb is from Middle English shapen, schapen, from Old English scieppan (“to shape, form, make, create, assign, arrange, destine, order, adjudge”), from Proto-West Germanic *skappjan, from Proto-Germanic *skapjaną (“to create”), from the noun.
The noun is cognate with Middle Dutch schap (“form”), Middle High German geschaf (“creature”), Icelandic skap (“state, condition, temper, mood”). The verb is cognate with Dutch scheppen, German schaffen, Swedish skapa (“create, make”), Norwegian Bokmål skape (“create”). Doublet of -ship.
Senses: examples: text: The used bookshop wouldn’t offer much due to the poor shape of the book.
glosses: The status or condition of something
examples: text: The vet checked to see what kind of shape the animal was in.
text: We exercise to keep in good physical shape.
glosses: Condition of personal health, especially muscular health.
examples: text: What shape shall we use for the cookies? Stars, circles, or diamonds?
text: No design right can exist in features of appearance of a product which are solely dictated by the product's technical function (see Dyson Ltd v Vax Ltd [2010] EWHC 1923 (Pat) which held the shape of the Dyson vacuum cleaner to be unregisterable as it was purely functional) [...]
ref: 2012, Robert Bradgate, Fidelma White, Margaret Llewelyn, Commercial Law, page 429:
glosses: A graphical representation of an object's form or its external boundary, outline, or external surface.
examples: text: Your head is a funny shape, rather oblong.
text: What if God's plans and actions do mold the shape of human events?
ref: 2006, Berdj Kenadjian, Martin Zakarian, From Darkness to Light:
text: A formal feature indicating a pre-Roman origin is word-final i, which is rare in the inherited nominal and adjectival lexicon. On the basis of this we may conclude that ispéli is likely the original shape of this word.
ref: 2025, Cid Swanenvleugel, The Pre-Roman Elements of the Sardinian Lexicon, page 356:
glosses: Form; formation.
qualifier: iron manufacture
glosses: A rolled or hammered piece, such as a bar, beam, angle iron, etc., having a cross section different from merchant bar.
qualifier: iron manufacture
glosses: A piece which has been roughly forged nearly to the form it will receive when completely forged or fitted.
examples: text: And if I 'm late for supper there 's a dish of macaroni cheese you must put in the oven and a tin of tomatoes to eat with it. And there is a little rhubarb and shape.
ref: 1918 March, Rebecca West [pseudonym; Cicily Isabel Fairfield], chapter IV, in The Return of the Soldier, 1st US edition, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC, page 92:
text: It was brawn and shape for high tea.
ref: 1978, Jane Gardam, God on the Rocks, Abacus, published 2014, page 111:
topics: cooking
food
lifestyle
glosses: A mould for making blancmange, jelly, etc., or a piece of such food formed moulded into a particular shape.
examples: text: A top cheater seldom ever uses shapes or loaded dice because they do not assure you of winning.
ref: 1961, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Government Operations. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Gambling and Organized Crime: Hearings, page 76:
topics: gambling
games
glosses: A loaded die.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
programming
sciences
glosses: In the Hack programming language, a group of data fields each of which has a name and a data type.
Synonyms: word: shape
word: form
word: Gestalt
word: gestalt
Hyponyms: word: contest shape
word: polygon
word: conic section
word: polyhedron
word: physique
word: fractal
word: triangle
word: square
word: circle
word: ellipse
word: oval
word: rectangle
word: rhombus
word: trapezoid
word: parallelogram
word: quadrilateral
word: cube
word: cuboid
word: prism
word: sphere
word: cone
word: cylinder
word: pyramid
Derived terms: bash into shape
beat into shape
blendshape
body shape
cut up shapes
day shape
get bent out of shape
get into shape
in any way, shape, or form
in bad shape
in no shape to
in no way, shape, or form
in shape
into shape
knock into shape
lick into shape
out of shape
shapeless
shapely
shape memory alloy
shape-note
shape note
shape operator
shape poem
shape poetry
shape rotator
shape-shifter
shape-shifting
shipshape
show shapes
take shape
the shape of things to come
T-shape
whip into shape
Related terms: word: :Category:Shapes