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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Shaping

Shape \Shape\ (sh[=a]p), v. t. [imp. Shaped (sh[=a]pt); p. p. Shaped or Shapen (sh[=a]p"'n); p. pr. & vb. n. Shaping.] [OE. shapen, schapen, AS. sceapian. The p. p. shapen is from the strong verb, AS. scieppan, scyppan, sceppan, p. p. sceapen. See Shape, n.]

  1. To form or create; especially, to mold or make into a particular form; to give proper form or figure to.

    I was shapen in iniquity.
    --Ps. li. 5.

    Grace shaped her limbs, and beauty decked her face.
    --Prior.

  2. To adapt to a purpose; to regulate; to adjust; to direct; as, to shape the course of a vessel.

    To the stream, when neither friends, nor force, Nor speed nor art avail, he shapes his course.
    --Denham.

    Charmed by their eyes, their manners I acquire, And shape my foolishness to their desire.
    --Prior.

  3. To imagine; to conceive; to call forth (ideas). [archaic]

    Oft my jealousy Shapes faults that are not.
    --Shak.

  4. To design; to prepare; to plan; to arrange.

    When shapen was all this conspiracy, From point to point.
    --Chaucer.

    Shaping machine. (Mach.) Same as Shaper.

    To shape one's self, to prepare; to make ready. [Obs.]

    I will early shape me therefor.
    --Chaucer.

Wiktionary
shaping

n. 1 The action of the verb '''to shape'''. 2 (context psychology English) A method of positive reinforcement of behaviour patterns in operant conditioning. vb. (present participle of shape English)

WordNet
shaping

adj. forming or capable of forming or molding; "a formative influence"; "a formative experience" [syn: formative]

shaping
  1. n. any process serving to define the shape of something [syn: defining]

  2. the fabrication of something in a particular shape [syn: formation]

Wikipedia
Shaping

Shaping can refer to:

  • In baking, shaping refers to the process step directly preceding proofing or final fermentation.
  • In electricity generation, maintaining reliable delivery, for example by use of pumped storage hydroelectricity
  • Shaping (psychology), the reinforcement of successive approximations to train a type of behavior
  • Traffic shaping, internet traffic management
  • Shaping (mechanical), a material removal process in which a cutting tool takes mass and shapes a stationary object to produce a sculpted or plane surface.
    • Gear shaper, the shaping process used specifically for gear manufacturing
  • Shaping (audio), modifications both additive and subtractive that alter the final timbre of the initial audio wave whether this is produced as an acoustic sound wave or an electric signal
Shaping (psychology)

Shaping is a conditioning paradigm used primarily in the experimental analysis of behavior. The method used is differential reinforcement of successive approximations. It was introduced by B. F. Skinner with pigeons and extended to dogs, dolphins, humans and other species. In shaping, the form of an existing response is gradually changed across successive trials towards a desired target behavior by rewarding exact segments of behavior. Skinner's explanation of shaping was this:

Usage examples of "shaping".

The shaping of a bonsai is therefore always a compromise and always a cooperation.

There were some, William Markland knew, as he regarded a crowd around the courthouse door, who were turncoats, adventuresome opportunists, and a few who were knaves, shaping their convictions to circumstance.

She was not aware how, hereafter, these small things would become the shapings and embodyings which desertion and penury would adopt, to sting her most severely.

Ideal-Forms shaping Matter and so producing body, there would be merely Reason-Principles dwelling remote in Soul.

The elemental was about fifty yards off the port bow, shaping itself a waterspout, a moonstruck column of blackness, from the placid surface of the sea.

Boeing and Airbus are hard at work shaping the future of commercial flight.

Powerful chants honor the history of Her wrath, impatience, violence, and Her force in shaping the land.

It is not surprising, therefore, that precisely those vibrations of the vocal cords, precisely those shapings of the cavity of the mouth, and those positions of the lips, often occur which we observe in the utterance of our vowels, and that among the child-noises produced unconsciously and in play are found almost all our consonants and, besides, many that are used in foreign languages.

Pelican Liquors and the boarded up Piggly Wiggly and a bottle gang is shaping up for the evening on the next corner and they lift their paper bags to me and I just hurry on and I can see a containership slipping by at the far end of the street and I have to keep myself from running.

Glancing at the nearby Cords, she saw that they ate by taking a bit of the mush, shaping it with their fingers, and then using it to scoop stew into their mouths.

Verified Instances of the Shaping of Plant Development by Thoughts, Symbols, Pictures, and Exodermal Tokens.

Holmes imagined all the fearless, fresher authors Fields was courting, convincing, shaping.

With him she studied fine ironwork, shaping metal into lacelike forms: between the Syth and the Pebbled Sea, Teraud was the best at it.

There was the saint shaping his fingers into the twiglike runic characters the forest understood.

Richard and Ada, and Miss Jellyby, and the little old lady had gone by him, and I was going when he touched me on the arm to stay me, and chalked the letter J upon the wall--in a very curious manner, beginning with the end of the letter and shaping it backward.