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What is "shelf"

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shelf
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
shelf
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
continental shelf
shelf life
the bottom drawer/shelf
▪ My passport’s in the bottom drawer of my desk.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
bottom
▪ The small packets were on the bottom shelf, medium on the middle shelf and large packets on the top.
▪ She pointed to a pile of books on the bottom shelf of the bookcase.
▪ All the garages on the bottom shelf are full, but one of the garages on the top shelf is empty.
▪ I took the package from the bottom shelf of the cupboard and scurried back down the hall.
▪ The bottom shelf was wider and it held a square white machine which looked like a document shredder.
▪ They were all on the bottom shelves.
continental
▪ The government has announced the opening of the first tender for exploration on its continental shelf.
▪ This basin, called the Chicxulub crater, formed on the continental shelf in shallow water.
▪ Most species of marine organism live on the continental shelf.
▪ The southern component spreads over the continental shelf.
▪ The shallow drilling programme is central to the systematic survey of the continental shelf.
▪ Five more oilfields were producing oil from the North Sea continental shelf in 1976, including the massive Brent and Alpha fields.
▪ The submarine extension of a continent is called the continental shelf.
high
▪ Sam stood on a chair and probed the back of the highest shelf.
▪ He counted nine loaves of bread on the highest shelf and a dozen tins of meat stacked on the dresser.
▪ Being tall, Theresa was in charge of the high shelves.
▪ Not many people had the nerve to climb higher than shelf fifty.
▪ Now it languished on a high shelf, under a box full of cash register tapes.
▪ I crossed behind her, and seized a pair of steps, used to reach the higher shelves.
▪ Not that this affected his appetite for the bottles on Franco's highest shelf.
long
▪ Other features: the meals have a long shelf life and are light and compact to carry.
▪ There were long shelves of books and a rangy philodendron had grown over the top row.
▪ Obviously this will be of significance for producers where there is a long shelf life.
▪ Code doting is used by some food manufacturers on products that have a long shelf life.
▪ Some fromagefrais and quark have a longer shelf life and may be kept for a week or ten days after purchase.
▪ The aim is to produce beers that are sterile, have a long shelf life and are highly profitable.
▪ Where you have a fairly long shelf, it is wise to add a horizontal back support.
low
▪ Place on a baking tray lined with folded newspaper on the lowest shelf of oven.
▪ Consider open or pull-out shelves or add towel racks or low shelves.
▪ But it was taped under the lowest shelf where the videos were stored.
▪ The marble iris stood peacefully on a low shelf.
▪ A priest was kneeling on a low velvety shelf, the only furniture in the stark room.
▪ There is adequate equipment to play music on the lowest shelf of the bookcase in the small sitting-room.
▪ It rested half-open on a low shelf where the normal, the legal stuff was trimly stacked.
▪ The cell had no features other than a low shelf bearing a thin vinyl mattress.
open
▪ When she came with the tray he would slip downstairs and steal what he could from the open shelves in the pantry.
▪ Consider open or pull-out shelves or add towel racks or low shelves.
▪ Pamphlets are unsuitable for open shelf stock.
▪ Cupboards are replaced by open steel shelves, lined with glass storage jars.
top
▪ The top shelf is where Gay Times is traditionally to be found, nestling coyly next to Penthouse.
▪ The food and wine choices are top shelf and usually laid out on the linen-covered hood of a car.
▪ Teacher: Will it fit on the top shelf?
▪ I, who can not reach anything on the top shelf at the supermarket?
▪ At home a few days later, she was pointing excitedly to a top shelf.
▪ All the garages on the bottom shelf are full, but one of the garages on the top shelf is empty.
▪ Although she could just about reach the top shelf with her fingertips, she was very unsteady.
■ NOUN
glass
▪ Adjustable shelving is still a very popular choice; timber and glass shelves are ideal for displaying ornaments.
▪ Lacquered cherry-red china closet with glass shelves, $ 149.
▪ Above the sink was a mirror composed of glass tiles stuck to the wall, and under it a simple glass shelf.
▪ The glint of the green bottle on the glass shelf above the basin.
ice
▪ Retreating ice shelves could be expected as a result of global warming, but are not in themselves evidence of it.
library
▪ There are books on many library shelves which become the subject of litigation, though not banned.
▪ The reality was that the school library shelves served the Black children poorly.
life
▪ Normally Flake bars have a shelf life of just nine months.
▪ Some movies have a Zen of shelf life -- they grow on you after repeated viewings.
▪ Generally recordings of this kind have a very short and limited shelf life.
▪ Unfortunately, AH-HAs have a very short shelf life.
▪ Other features: the meals have a long shelf life and are light and compact to carry.
▪ Code doting is used by some food manufacturers on products that have a long shelf life.
▪ The left has no interest in trying to extend its shelf life.
▪ Any grocer knows that fruits have widely different shelf lives, even with refrigeration.
registration
▪ Co. and is part of a $ 1 billion shelf registration.
space
▪ Not much compared with a redundant commercial package wasting shelf space.
▪ The spice war between Burns Philp and McCormick created a costly bidding war for shelf space that hurt both companies.
▪ Like-for-like growth, which excludes the effects of new shelf space, hit 3.1 percent in the second half.
▪ The idea was to capture the shelf space, lower prices, gain customers and then slowly ratchet prices back up.
▪ His collected works, he said, probably fill four foot ten of shelf space.
▪ By 1993, it consisted of 202 volumes and 131, 803 pages, taking up nineteen linear feet of shelf space.
▪ Many obsolescence measures have been derived to assist librarians in calculating shelf space allocation for journals.
▪ The closings reduced shelf space, which hurt record labels.
store
▪ Smaller or lesser-known manufacturers could find it harder to get space on store shelves.
▪ Seventy years of empty store shelves have created great pent-up demand for consumer goods, including electronics.
▪ More than 10 years would pass, however, before it appeared on grocery store shelves as Saran Wrap.
▪ This is one of the best things on your local comic book stores shelves.
▪ In fact, the gene-altered products often seem little different from ordinary varieties when lined up on store shelves.
▪ Beautiful glass jars sit in expensive rows on gourmet store shelves.
▪ Five months later, the goods were unpacked, ironed, and returned to the store shelves.
supermarket
▪ This reduces the wastage due to damage in the journey from greenhouse to supermarket shelf.
▪ Some imitation products are available on supermarket shelves.
▪ This latter is the most expensive champagne on any supermarket shelf.
▪ Some products on supermarket shelves are simply described as pasteurized process cheese product.
▪ Have a look out for it on supermarket shelves.
▪ Sour cream dressing and sour half-and-half dressing have been defined and are on supermarket shelves.
▪ When these products will reach the supermarket shelf is unclear.
▪ After all you can't sell the countryside on the supermarket shelf.
■ VERB
clear
▪ Dealers are also clearing their shelves.
▪ They have cleared their shelves of anything that could offend the public or bring down the wrath of the tabloids.
▪ The most basic is simply to clear space on the shelves to make room for new additions to stock.
▪ People in Maldon have been rushing out to nearby stores and clearing the shelves of meat and poultry.
fill
▪ I used to weigh spuds and fill the shelves and all that sort of thing.
▪ Scores of new titles, with slick covers and graphics, fill the shelves.
▪ Just the way the nouveauriche of today buy leather-covered volumes by the metre, in order to fill the shelves of their libraries.
▪ The books fill tall shelves along three walls and cover the desk, a table and much of the floor.
▪ There's just a small matter of something to fill the shelves.
▪ Advice books for parents on how to deal with child-development problems at every age level fill many shelves in bookstores and libraries.
▪ Whichever, the walls were filled with shelves, and the shelves with books.
▪ He glanced at the documents and scrap-books filling these old shelves.
hit
▪ So he went at me, but I ducked and he hit the shelf - he broke his thumb in two places!
▪ Magic shop in Plantation, the rat stock sells out nearly before it hits the shelves.
▪ They - and you - should look out for our new magazine - Fishkeeping Answers which hit the shelves on March 14.
▪ An interesting book hits the shelves next month involving former baseball great Tug McGraw.
▪ Yet another all-in-one shampoo has hit the shelves, this time from St. Ives.
leave
▪ The saga centres on the tangled love life of a 30-year-old woman, who fears she will be left on the shelf.
▪ What was left on the shelves would not keep them alive.
▪ Below the old Church at Battersea the retreating flood had left exposed a wide shelf of mud and gravel.
▪ Lots of girls married in haste and repented at leisure then because they were afraid of being left on the shelf.
▪ I couldn't afford to risk being left on the shelf once Karen had had her way with me.
line
▪ Bags of manure line the shelves.
▪ In fact, the gene-altered products often seem little different from ordinary varieties when lined up on store shelves.
▪ She bought books and lined the shelves of her bookcase.
▪ Sticky bottles of cough medicine lined his bathroom shelf.
▪ Rows of sweetie jars lined the shelves.
pull
▪ The woman looked at them for a moment over the book she had pulled from the shelf.
▪ One of the giving-out-food humans was pulling trays off a shelf when a movement made it look up.
put
▪ He put it on a shelf at the back of the hangar with the rest of the heads.
▪ The bulb had blown and he stood in the dimness putting objects on shelves.
▪ We helped with putting up the shelves and we filled all the bottles in each shop.
▪ I empty the soil in it and put it on the shelf.
▪ If your cupboards are full to bursting, put up a handy shelf.
▪ Some cans of milk were put on the shelves and their crates made into chairs.
▪ Do not put shelves or bathroom cabinets immediately above the washbasin.
▪ The doors could close, backs could be turned, curricular recommendations accepted, nodded at, and put on the shelf.
reach
▪ When he reached the shelf he discovered most of the books had disappeared.
▪ Stuart tried hard to reach but the shelf was just too high.
▪ When these products will reach the supermarket shelf is unclear.
▪ If he stood on tiptoe, he could reach the shelf.
▪ Although she could just about reach the top shelf with her fingertips, she was very unsteady.
▪ His mind a careful blank, he reached to the shelf over it and took down a small plastic bag.
▪ Adam reached to a shelf behind Miranda's desk and picked up a case of cosmetic samples.
▪ I crossed behind her, and seized a pair of steps, used to reach the higher shelves.
sit
▪ Just to know that some fabulous ending sits on a shelf somewhere.
▪ Mcduff came with him to sit in the shelves and they took it in turns to keep watch.
▪ The promising plan now sits on a shelf in some county office.
▪ I sat on the shelf beside the steering-wheel, the shelf that was supposed to be for passengers' parcels and luggage.
stack
▪ The companies who thought they were buying themselves employees to stack their shelves or deliver mail are getting nothing of the sort.
▪ Some wear casual shirts and jeans, their Reeboks and Nikes stacked in shoe shelves by the door.
▪ The business grew Topsy-like as Dixons stacked its shelves with electrical and photographic equipment from low-cost suppliers in the Far East.
▪ They were stacked on the shelf.
stand
▪ The books and pictures stood out on the shelves.
▪ Against the right wall, at chest height, stood a ten-foot-long sloping shelf upon which the newspaper layouts could be spread.
▪ I spent the morning sitting on the floor and the afternoon standing up at the shelf.
▪ She was standing at the meat shelf, scanning the plastic packets.
▪ They stood on a shelf in the spare room at Annick Water.
▪ A few minutes later, she was standing in front of a shelf stacked with yearly editions of the book.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ shelves of books
▪ Put it back on the top shelf.
▪ supermarket shelves
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ An interesting book hits the shelves next month involving former baseball great Tug McGraw.
▪ Her daughters would giggle over the odd doodles they found in kitchen drawers or on the back shelf of the downstairs toilet.
▪ I empty the soil in it and put it on the shelf.
▪ Like any other book, its popularity will last for a moment, but it will remain on the shelves.
▪ Normally Flake bars have a shelf life of just nine months.
▪ Now the telephone had acquired a personality, sat on the shelf so smug, taunting her with its silence.
▪ The next shelf we stopped on was filled with farm animals.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Shelf

Shelf \Shelf\, n.; pl. Shelves. [OE. shelfe, schelfe, AS. scylfe; akin to G. schelfe, Icel. skj[=a]lf. In senses 2 & 3, perhaps a different word (cf. Shelve, v. i.).]

  1. (Arch.) A flat tablet or ledge of any material set horizontally at a distance from the floor, to hold objects of use or ornament.

  2. A sand bank in the sea, or a rock, or ledge of rocks, rendering the water shallow, and dangerous to ships.

    On the tawny sands and shelves.
    --Milton.

    On the secret shelves with fury cast.
    --Dryden.

  3. (Mining) A stratum lying in a very even manner; a flat, projecting layer of rock.

  4. (Naut.) A piece of timber running the whole length of a vessel inside the timberheads.
    --D. Kemp.

    To lay on the shelf, to lay aside as unnecessary or useless; to dismiss; to discard.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
shelf

late 14c., from Middle Low German schelf "shelf, set of shelves," or from Old English cognate scylfe, which perhaps meant "shelf, ledge, floor," and scylf "peak, pinnacle," from Proto-Germanic *skelf- "split," possibly from the notion of a split piece of wood (compare Old Norse skjölf "bench"), from PIE root *(s)kel- (1) "to cut, cleave" (see scale (n.1)).\n

\nShelf life first recorded 1927. Phrase on the shelf "out of the way, inactive" is attested from 1570s; of unmarried women with no prospects from 1839. Off the shelf "ready-made" is from 1936. Meaning "ledge of rock" is from 1809, perhaps from or influenced by shelf (n.2). Related: Shelves.

shelf

"sandbank," 1540s, of unknown origin. Related: Shelfy "abounding in sandbanks."

Wiktionary
shelf

n. 1 A flat, rigid, rectangular structure, fixed at right angles to a wall, and used to support, store or display objects. 2 The capacity of such an object; as, a shelf of videos. 3 A projecting ledge that resembles such an object. 4 A reef, shoal or sandbar.

Related phrases:
WordNet
shelf

  1. n. a support that consists of a horizontal surface for holding objects

  2. a projecting ridge on a mountain or submerged under water [syn: ledge]

  3. [also: shelves (pl)]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Shelf (computing)

The Shelf is an interface feature in NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP, and is used as a repository to store links to commonly used files, directories and programs, and as a temporary "holding" place to move/copy files and directories around in the file system hierarchy. In Mac OS X, items may be dragged onto the sidebar area of the Finder while holding the Apple key, but these do not behave as placeholders and cannot be manipulated in the below manner.

The dynamics of the Shelf in file system operations can be illustrated by comparison with the metaphor used in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. In order to move a file the following steps may be taken:

  • the window containing the source folder is opened
  • the window containing the destination folder is opened
  • the desired file in the source directory is dragged to the destination folder

With the NeXT operating systems, in addition to moving files by dragging them from window to window, the following method can be used:

  • the user navigates to the source directory
  • the file is dragged to the Shelf
  • the user navigates to the destination directory
  • the file is dragged from the Shelf to the destination directory

Note that the file, when dragged to the Shelf, has not moved anywhere and is not changed in any way. The Shelf icon is merely a placeholder for the file. In moving the placeholder off the shelf, the actual action occurs.

The NeXT functionality builds upon this concept by allowing the destination directory to be put on the Shelf as well, and the file can be merely dragged to the destination directory icon.

The process is similar to the Microsoft Windows functionality of copying or cutting file system objects (a file or files, a folder or folders, or a combination of both) to the clipboard; the objects are not copied or removed from their original location until the paste operation to the new location is completed. The Shelf concept, though older, is more powerful in that the file system objects, their sources and destinations are persistent and available as long as they are on the Shelf (in the Windows cut, copy, and paste metaphor the objects and locations persist until one copy/move operation is complete or until something else is placed in the clipboard).

Since Shelf icons are 'placeholders' of sorts, icons can be put on the Shelf representing commonly used directories, and commonly used programs can be put on the Shelf as well.

The NeXTSTEP and OPENSTEP file management application (called FileViewer and run by the Workspace Manager) also allowed users to have different shelves associated with particular directories. Users simply opened a new browser rooted in a particular subdirectory, and that browser window would show the corresponding shelf, allowing users to have many different shelves based on whatever folder hierarchy they happened to be using to organize their files.

Shelf

Shelf may refer to:

  • Shelf (storage), a flat horizontal surface used for display and storage
Shelf (organization)

Shelf is a voluntary organisation created with the aim of bringing new levels of sexual health awareness to young people of the United Kingdom. It is unique in that it was founded by four Year 10 students of Peterborough in April 2007 and is still currently owned and operated by them. It was founded with support from members of Peterborough City Council and the Peterborough NHS Primary Care Trust. Shelf runs via a website and distributed brochures containing information on sexual health and links to local support organisations.

Shelf (song)

"Shelf" is a song by American pop rock group Jonas Brothers from their third studio album A Little Bit Longer (2008). It was written by Kevin Jonas, Joe Jonas and Nick Jonas, with production helmed by Jon Fields.

Shelf (storage)

A shelf ( pl. shelves) is a flat horizontal plane which is used in a home, business, store, or elsewhere to hold items of value that are being displayed, stored, or offered for sale. It is raised off the ground and usually anchored/supported on its shorter length sides by brackets. It can also be held up by columns or pillars.

A shelf is also known as a counter, ledge, mantel, or rack. Tables designed to be placed against a wall, possibly mounted, are known as console tables, and are similar to individual shelves.

A shelf can be attached to a wall or other vertical surface, be suspended from a ceiling, be a part of a free-standing frame unit, or it can be part of a piece of furniture such as a cabinet, bookcase, entertainment center, some headboards, and so on. Usually two to six shelves make up a unit, each shelf being attached perpendicularly to the vertical or diagonal supports and positioned parallel one above the other. Free-standing shelves can be accessible from either one or both longer length sides. A shelf with a hidden internal bracket is termed a floating shelf.

The length of the shelf is based upon the space limitations of its siting and the amount of weight which it will be expected to hold. The vertical distance between the shelves is based upon the space limitations of the unit's siting and the height of the objects; adjustable shelving systems allow the vertical distance to be altered. The unit can be fixed or be some form of mobile shelving. The most heavy duty shelving is pallet racking.

In a store, the front edge of the shelf under the object(s) held might be used to display the name, product number, pricing, and other information about the object(s).

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "shelf".

Compton Mackenzie novels on the shelf, glassy ambrotypes of her late husband Austin night-dusted inside gilded frames up on the mantel where last time Michaelmas daisies greeted and razzled from a little Sevres vase she and Austin found together one Saturday long ago in a Wardour Street shop.

She set the astrolabe on the shelf, rested bow and quiver in the corner, and hung the partridges from the rafters.

I came to a shelf holding rows of five-kilogram bags of basmati rice, my mind drifted back to an evening several months ago in a Moorish garden in the south of Spain.

In a quick motion, he pulled off the coat, the sports jacket, tossed them aside, grabbed a bladeless safety razor from the cabinet shelf and scraped a swath through the layer of white lather, then dashed for the door and flung it wide.

The desk and viewscreens were almost identical, though the shelves were empty of the sailing memorabilia and other clutter that Bonner kept.

Then Stft stood, turning his back to Mank, stepping out of his loincloth and then bending at the waist to brace himself on a wide shelf.

He moved along the bookcase and swung out a hinged section of a shelf at eye level to reveal a wall safe, another massy vault larger within than without.

He had already, at the foot of the stair, called out to the stout patronne, a lady who turned to him from the bustling, breezy hall a countenance covered with fresh matutinal powder and a bosom as capacious as the velvet shelf of a chimneypiece, over which her round white face, framed in its golden frizzle, might have figured as a showy clock.

Instead, they saw shelves and shelves of books, low lighting, a hardwood floor gleaming mellowly from countless applications of wax.

He looked quickly around the long row of shelves and saw the girl, staring at the microfiche screen.

Then he heard her pulling books off the shelf and stacking them up on the microfiche table.

From the top shelf he took a Beretta 9 millimetre handgun to replace the one confiscated by Aslan and shoved it into his flight suit.

The kitchen was even shabbier than the dining room, its shelves filled with cheap saucepans and a miscellanea of china.

The closet door was half open, revealing several different shades of blue, milk crates of papers and miscellanea stacked on the shelf above her clothes.

She wanted to be mistaken, to have misplaced, miscounted the essentially interchangeable stock, but knew at once that no amount of wishful thinking, checking, rechecking the shelves, could erase the stubborn fact of loss gaping up at her from the mockingly vacant slots of the gem trays.