Library / English Dictionary

SHELVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Place on a shelf

Example:

shelve books

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "shelve" is one way to...):

lay; place; pose; position; put; set (put into a certain place or abstract location)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They shelve the goods

Derivation:

shelver (a worker who puts things (as books) on shelves)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Hold back to a later time

Example:

let's postpone the exam

Synonyms:

defer; hold over; postpone; prorogue; put off; put over; remit; set back; shelve; table

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Hypernyms (to "shelve" is one way to...):

delay (act later than planned, scheduled, or required)

"Shelve" entails doing...:

reschedule (assign a new time and place for an event)

call off; cancel; scratch; scrub (postpone indefinitely or annul something that was scheduled)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "shelve"):

call (stop or postpone because of adverse conditions, such as bad weather)

hold (stop dealing with)

suspend (render temporarily ineffective)

probate (put a convicted person on probation by suspending his sentence)

reprieve; respite (postpone the punishment of a convicted criminal, such as an execution)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s something PP

Derivation:

shelver (a worker who puts things (as books) on shelves)

Credits

 Context examples: 

A return to clay and plaster followed, and ghostly casts of her acquaintances haunted corners of the house, or tumbled off closet shelves onto people's heads.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Captain Harville was no reader; but he had contrived excellent accommodations, and fashioned very pretty shelves, for a tolerable collection of well-bound volumes, the property of Captain Benwick.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English books, whole shelves full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and newspapers.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Ice shelves are not actually part of the land mass with which they are associated.

(Scientists describe how 'upside-down rivers' of warm water break Antarctica's ice shelf, Wikinews)

"It is vital to understand the causes of ice-shelf instability because ice shelves buttress against the discharge of inland ice and therefore influence ice-sheet contributions to sea level rise."

(Reframing the dangers Antarctica's meltwater ponds pose to ice shelves and sea level, National Science Foundation)

He returned with a large book, one of the logbooks which formed a line upon the shelves.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Although the interactions between ice and ocean occurring hundreds of metres below the surface of ice shelves seem remote, they have a direct impact on long-term sea level.

(Rapid melting of the world’s largest ice shelf linked to solar heat in the ocean, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

You see what is heading our way before anyone else does, but with so many planets in Capricorn, your twelfth house of privacy and things behind the scenes, it may be disappointing to hear you should shelve some of your biggest ideas for now.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Seven of your thin little volumes are on my shelves; and there are two thicker volumes, the essays, which, you will pardon my saying, and I know not which is flattered more, fully equal your verse.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The books that Agnes and I had read together, were on their shelves; and the desk where I had laboured at my lessons, many a night, stood yet at the same old corner of the table.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)