Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: SHELVES |
SHELVESPlural1. Of Shelf |
Date "SHELVES" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1350. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | To see empty shelves in dreams, indicates losses and consequent gloom. Full shelves, augurs happy contentment through the fulfillment of hope and exertions. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
General | Thin wooden, or metal, boards fixed horizontally on a wall for displaying objects and sales materials. Source: European Union. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Sorry, but we just can't keep em on our shelves. (O Brother, Where Art Thou?; writing credit: Ethan Coen) And the upstairs shelves are delayed because the shipment of pine we ordered has beetles (You've Got Mail; writing credit: Nora Ephron) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
References | |||
Books |
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Music |
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High Tech |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | A vast storeroom for computer tapes that are on multi-tiered rows shelves. Without the new technology of computers, it would be impossible to store and retrieve the vast amounts of information needed for detailed cancer research being done today. Credit: Linda Bartlett (photographer). |  | Pictured is an experimental miniature pig. The experimental animal is being held in place by rubber-tube covered arms in a laboratory setting. Some cans are visible on shelves behind the animal. The miniature pig has an unusually thick placenta that prevents sow's immune system from influencing that of offspring. Raised in a sterile environment, such piglets are vital in providing clues as to how the immune system develops. Credit: Linda Bartlett (photographer). |
 | Colorful and tasty nuna beans will pop after a few minutes of cooking. Someday they may appear on supermarket shelves as a nutritious snack food. Credit: USDA ARS News. |  | [Top shelves in reference division's reading room]. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | [A pregnant woman stands before shelves of non-prescription drugs]. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |  | Emerson's study [showing shelves of books, fireplace and desk]. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Interior of a laboratory, with scientific equipment and rows of shelves. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Shelves in library, U.S. Naval Academy. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Cash register and empty shelves in closed store. Babbitt, Minnesota, "bust" iron mining town. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | West Danville, Vermont. The shelves in G. S. Hastings's general store, holding 8,000 to 10,000 items which are clearly marked with "calling price". Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Canning jars" by Marty Weis Commentary: "Shelves full of old canning jars and a few wine bottles." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Author | Quotation |
Charles Lamb | Borrowers of books --those mutilators of collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators of odd volumes. |
John Greenleaf Whittier | Here Greek and Roman find themselves alive along these crowded shelves; and Shakespeare treads again his stage, and Chaucer paints anew his age. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | It was upon one of the upper shelves, and as the bishop was rather short, he could not reach it. |
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Joyce, James | That came from the bottles on the shelves. |
Grapes of Wrath | Steinbeck, John | He entered the store and walked to the shelves where the whisky bottles stood behind wire netting |
Walden | Thoreau, Henry David | Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | Commercially packaged noncarbonated soft drinks and fruit juices that do not require refrigeration until after they are opened (for example, those that can be stored unrefrigerated on grocery shelves) also are safe. Avoid using ice or drinking untreated water when traveling in countries where the water supply might be unsafe. (references) | |
Business | Currently, there are some dealers offering competitively priced U.S. home furniture items for sitting room sets (single chairs, loveseats and sofas), bedrooms, end tables, coffee tables, side tables, and library shelves. (references) | |
Public opinion has made it very difficult for labeled products to compete with unlabeled ones, especially since most European food market chains have stated that they will not offer any GM-products on their shelves, unless unavoidable. (references) | ||
Many experts expect that, once GM-food can be found in the supermarket shelves standing next to GM-free foodstuffs, consumer resistance to GM-food will diminish, simply because the GM-food will most likely be cheaper and possibly also healthier and tastier. (references) | ||
Civil Liberties | Macau | According to Falun Gong practitioners, the group's materials, available for sale in two local stores before Falun Gong was banned on the mainland in July 1999, were removed from the shelves by store management. (references) |
Hong Kong | Some bookstores continued to offer Falun Gong materials for sale, but bookstores operated by Chinese enterprises that removed Falun Gong books from their shelves in the wake of the July 1999 mainland ban on the movement continued to refuse to carry Falun Gong publications. (references) | |
Economic History | Saudi Arabia | Pirated software is still easily obtained in Saudi Arabia, although it has been removed from open display on store shelves. (references) |
Trade | Bahrain | Although stickers are not legally accepted, the law is not rigorously enforced as products do appear on store shelves with stickers. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "SHELVES" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 98.43% of the time. "SHELVES" is used about 1,017 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (plural) | 98.43% | 1,001 | 7,352 |
| Lexical Verb (-s form) | 1.47% | 15 | 90,616 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.1% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 1,017 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "SHELVES": piece of furniture with shelves ♦ set of shelves. Additional references. | |
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "SHELVES": bare-shelves, book-shelves, mid-shelves. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "SHELVES"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Chinese | 架子 (shelf), 檔 (cross-piece, file, grade, official records, records). (various references) | |
Danish | hylder (shelving). (various references) | |
Dutch | rekken (extend, lengthen, strech out). (various references) | |
Finnish | hyllykkö (shelving). (various references) | |
French | rayonnage (shelving), étagères (shelving). (various references) | |
German | regale (shelving). (various references) | |
Greek | ράφια (shelving). (various references) | |
Hungarian | szél (border, breeze, confine, edge, flatus, heel, hem, ledge, let's see how the land lies, margin, periphery, shelf, to be in the wind's eye, wind), zátony (bank, bar, reef, rock, shallow, shelf, shoal, spit), polc (bracket, ledge, shelf, whatnot), párkány (berm, eaves, fascia, ledge, list, offset, ridge, shelf, sill, string), homokpad (bank, bar, sand-bed, shelf, shoal). (various references) | |
Italian | scaffali (shelving), scaffalatura (shelf unit), ripiani (shelving). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 棚 (rack). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | たな (rack), かくシェルフ (each shelf). (various references) | |
Korean | 선반 (lathe, ledge, mill, Mills, Rack, shelf). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | elvesshay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | prateleiras (shelving). (various references) | |
Romanian | etajerã (set of shelves, shelf, whatnot). (various references) | |
Russian | складывать на полку/ полка. (various references) | |
Spanish | estantes (shelving), estanterías (shelving), estantería (bookshelves, rack, shelving). (various references) | |
Swedish | hyllor. (various references) | |
Turkish | raflar (shelving). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "SHELVES": bookshelves, mantelshelves. (additional references) | |
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"SHELVES" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Schelvis, Scheves, schlegels, shalves, sheeves, sheilve, Shelest, shelfs, shelive, shelless, Shellmex, shelver, shelvesful, Shevels, shevle, shielve. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "SHELVES" (pronounced she"lvz) |
| 4 | -e" l v z | delves, elves, ourselves, selves, themselves, yourselves. |
| 3 | -l v z | absolves, bivalves, bookshelves, dissolves, evolves, involves, resolves, revolves, solves, valves, wolves. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "e-e-h-l-s-s-v" | |
-1 letter: helves, selves, shelve, vessel. | |
-2 letters: elves, heels, helve, seels. | |
-3 letters: eels, else, eses, eves, heel, lees, less, seel, sees, sels, shes, vees. | |
-4 letters: eel, els, ess, eve, hes, lee, lev, see, sel, she, vee. | |
-5 letters: eh, el, es, he, sh. | |
| Words containing the letters "e-e-h-l-s-s-v" | |
+1 letter: hiveless, shelvers. | |
+2 letters: dishevels, shelviest, shovelers. | |
+3 letters: shinleaves, shovellers, shovelnose, themselves. | |
+4 letters: bolshevizes, bookshelves, devilfishes, shirtsleeve, shovelnoses, theirselves. | |
+5 letters: devilishness, heavenliness, lavishnesses, liverishness, nevertheless, shirtsleeved, shirtsleeves, shrievalties, silverfishes, slaveholders. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
