Klryz
Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

Vowels

iːseeɪsite / ɛbedæcat
ɑːfatherɒhot (UK)ɔːlawʊput
uːtooʌcupɜːbirdəabout
eɪdayaɪmyɔɪboyaʊnow
əʊ / oʊgo (UK / US)ɪəneareəhairʊətour

Consonants that look unusual

θthinðthisʃsheʒmeasure
tʃchurchdʒjudgeŋsingjyes

p b t d k g f v s z h m n l r w sound as in ordinary English spelling.

Marks

  • ˈ main stress, before the stressed syllable: /ˈwɔːtə/ water · ˌ lighter (secondary) stress: /ˌʌndəˈstænd/ understand
  • ː a long vowel · (r) an r said only in accents that pronounce it (most American, Scottish, Irish)

Common word endings

  • -s / -es (plurals; he/she form of verbs): /s/ after voiceless sounds (cats), /z/ after voiced (dogs), /ɪz/ after s, z, sh, ch, j sounds (buses, watches). Spelling: -es after s, x, z, ch, sh; consonant + y → -ies (city → cities).
  • -ed (past): /t/ after voiceless sounds (walked), /d/ after voiced (played), /ɪd/ after t or d (wanted). Spelling: love → loved, stop → stopped, carry → carried.
  • -ing: make → making, run → running, see → seeing.
  • Irregular: go, went, gone · be, was, been · see, saw, seen · man → men · child → children · mouse → mice.
  • Older (King James) forms: -eth = -s (he loveth = he loves) · -est with “thou” (thou lovest) · spake = spoke.

English Dictionary · 107,383 entries · Sources & licences

shelve

/ʃɛlv/ verb, noun, proper noun

Also a form of shelf

Forms shelves shelving shelved shelvest shelvedst shelveth

  1. verb To furnish (a place) with shelves; especially, to furnish (a library, etc.) with bookshelves. “to shelve a closet or a library”
  2. verb To place (something) on a shelf; especially, to place or arrange (books) on a bookshelf. “The library needs volunteers to help shelve books.”
  3. verb (slang) To take (drugs) by anal or vaginal insertion.
  4. verb (Wales, slang) To have sex with (someone).
  5. verb To postpone or put aside, or entirely cease dealing with (a matter for discussion, a project, etc.). “They shelved the entire project when they heard how much it would cost.”
  6. verb (also reflexive) To remove (someone) from active service.
  7. verb (intransitive, obsolete) To hang over or project like a shelf; to overhang.
  8. verb (intransitive) To extend via a series of projecting shelves.
  9. noun (archaic) A rocky shelf or ledge of a cliff, a mountain, etc.
  10. verb (transitive, UK, dialectal) To tilt or tip (a cart) to discharge its contents.
  11. verb Of land or a surface: to incline, to slope.
  12. verb (obsolete) To be in an inclined or sloping position.
  13. proper noun A hamlet in Worthen with Shelve parish, western Shropshire, England (OS grid ref SO3399).

Synonyms

Formal terms bed coit coitize dight enjoy feague go in unto go to bed with have know lie by lie with love mount occupy penetrate season seduce sleep with postpone prorogue hold over put over table set back defer remit put off

Antonyms

deshelve unshelve

Etymology

The verb is a back-formation from shelves, the plural of shelf (“flat, rigid structure, fixed at right angles to a wall or forming a part of a cabinet, desk, etc., and used to display, store, or support objects”).
The noun is derived from etymology 1, verb sense 2 (“(obsolete) to hang over or project like a shelf”).

From Late Middle English shelven (“to separate (someone or something) from another thing, keep away”); further etymology uncertain, possibly:
* from shelf, shelfe (“shelf; cabinet, cupboard; grassy bank”) (though this is doubted by the Oxford English Dictionary); or
* related to West Frisian skelf (“not level or straight, oblique”).

Treated as a singular form of shelves, the plural of shelf (“reef; sandbar; shoal”).

Webster’s 1913

  1. verb To furnish with shelves; as, to shelve a closet or a library.
  2. verb To place on a shelf. Hence: To lay on the shelf; to put aside; to dismiss from service; to put off indefinitely; as, to shelve an officer; to shelve a claim.
  3. verb To incline gradually; to be slopping; as, the bottom shelves from the shore.

Etymology [Perhapss originally from the same source as shallow, but influenced by shelf a ledge, a platform.]

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “shelve”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details