shoulder
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈʃəʊldə/
enpr: shōlʹdər
ipa: /ˈʃoʊldɚ/
rhymes: -əʊldə(ɹ)
Forms: form: shoulders
form: shouldering
form: shouldered
form: shouldered
form: shouder
Etymology: From Middle English schuldre, sholder, shulder, schulder, from Old English sculdra, sculdor (“shoulder”), from Proto-West Germanic *skuldru (“shoulder”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps related to Proto-Germanic *skelduz (“shield”), see shield. Cognate with Old Frisian skuldere (“shoulder”) (West Frisian skouder (“shoulder”)), Middle Low German scholder (“shoulder”), Low German Schuller, Schulder (“shoulder”), Dutch schouder (“shoulder”), German Schulter (“shoulder”).
Senses: examples: text: […]As they the earth would ſhoulder from her ſeat,[…]
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 21, page 160:
text: Around her numberless the rabble flowed, / Shouldering each other, crowding for a view.
ref: 1714, Nicholas Rowe, The Tragedy of Jane Shore:
glosses: To push (a person or thing) using one's shoulder.
examples: text: He shouldered me out of my own band.
glosses: To bully, manipulate or pull rank on (somebody).
examples: text: Early in the morning they shouldered light packs, took their rifles, crossed the big draw, and entered the timber where was the deadfall.
ref: 1922, A. M. Chisholm, A Thousand a Plate:
text: Like a power clean, shouldering a sandbag — lifting it from the floor to your shoulder in one explosive movement — requires a coordinated effort from your core, upper body, and legs.
ref: 2008 June, Men's Health, The World's Simplest Workout, volume 23, number 5, page 120:
glosses: To put (something) on one's shoulders.
examples: text: All three sets are nicely sculptured along the bottom to prevent interference when shouldering your gun with proper shooting form.
ref: 2004, Chris Christian, Larry Sterett, Rick Sapp, The Gun Digest Book of Trap & Skeet Shooting, page 221:
glosses: To place (something) against one's shoulders.
examples: text: The shareholders were then shouldering a burden of liability out of proportion to their mere ownership of theoretical fractions of the business.
ref: 1950, Colin Arthur Cooke, Corporation, Trust and Company: An Essay in Legal History, page 111:
glosses: To bear a burden, as a financial obligation.
examples: text: shoulder the blame
text: The former president has been forced to shoulder some of the blame for poor performances in key races, including in Pennsylvania, where his handpicked Republican candidate, Mehmet Oz, lost to Democrat John Fetterman in a contest that allowed Democrats to keep the Senate majority.
ref: 2022 November 15, Hugo Lowell, “Trump to barrel ahead with campaign reveal despite Republican pushback”, in The Guardian:
text: She had a father before this and now she doesn’t have a father. And I shouldered that because if Meg wasn’t with me, then her dad would still be her dad.
ref: 2022 December 8, Caroline Davies, quoting Prince Harry, “Prince Harry: royals didn’t understand risk to Meghan of racial attacks”, in The Guardian:
glosses: To accept responsibility for.
examples: text: allowance at the bottom of blind bores for the chamfered tip of the reamer will obviate additional operations with shouldering or bottoming reamers to completely finish the entire length of a hole.
ref: 1977, Roger W. Autor Bolz, Production Processes: The Productivity Handbook, page 12-81:
glosses: To form a shape resembling a shoulder.
examples: text: The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, seemed to make the stillness more oppressive.
ref: 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter I, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.; Melbourne, Vic.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC, page 2:
text: […]a yoke of the great sulky white bullocks […] came shouldering along together;
ref: 1894 May, Rudyard Kipling, “Servants of the Queen”, in The Jungle Book, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published June 1894, →OCLC, page 190:
text: He had seen them in the beer halls, shouldering up to the head of the queues
ref: 2003, Harrison E. Salisbury, The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad, page 304:
text: Mr. Wagstaff strolled with me along the wooded arm of land shouldering northwards from Bethlehem Bay.
ref: 2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN, page 502:
glosses: To move by or as if by using one's shoulders.
glosses: To round and slightly raise the top edges of slate shingles so that they form a tighter fit at the lower edge and can be swung aside to expose the nail.
glosses: To slope downwards from the crest and whitewater portion of a wave.
glosses: Of a servant: to embezzle money from (the employer).